A Little Black Dress in practice

So, here's a photoshoot! The Little Black Dress, as I wore it to the wedding today.

(I'll probably also do some photos of details, later.)

 The jacket is about 40 years old; one of the things I got from my friend's mother, together with the Alice Stuart blouse. It came with ugly, non-matching and awfully attached buttons. I switched them for these blue-and-white ones my grandfather had made (with resin and ink); when I was a child, my mom had them on a dressing gown, and I've always loved them in the stash and wanted to find a worthy use for them. I think I did.
 (The jacket still needs to be taken in a little bit in the back for me, but otherwise it's a perfect match for the dress!)

 Necklace from my grandmother and my favourite thrifted shoes.
And a very nifty (alas, very small) purse that can go from shoulderbag to clutch.

And the Madeline hat, with many thanks to Lisa. It has really turned out to be just the hat for me; I think you'll be happy to hear I got compliments on it, Lisa. :-)

And many thanks to my sister for the photos, and for help with the dress - she marked the back neckline for me, and the perfect skirt length as well.

As we were dressing up and my sister admired my 50s inspired outfit and I admired her Indian violets (I took a photo of her, too, but it sadly did not turn out well - I'm not used to photographing people...), we got the scary idea that we might upstage the bride.

We needn't worry.

She comes from Algeria; she was so nicely put together in her Algerian outfit that no one could outshine her, not even the medieval-clad guests from Germany. :-)

One pair in, one pair out + My first "vintage" dress

While on the subject of shoes, and thrifting, and that sort of thing...

I've been to another of my cousin's-once-removed clothes exchanges. I got rid of some old clothes (and forgot some others at home), and got myself a new pair of white heeled sandals.

To replace this pair:

I loved these when they were new, and they went well with the 1970 dress I graduated from Grammar school in:

But they're sadly uncomfortable, because the straps are elastic and don't hold very well, and the heel is situated in the very back of the shoe, which I have discovered not to work very well with my style of walking (long, low strides, toes facing straight forward) it's simply not comfortable, I've heard complains from others, too. The new shoes also have elastic straps, but they're more strategically situated, and the heel's definitely much better situated. So the old pair went into hiding in a wardrobe and in spring it will be brought to the next clothes exchange. That's what's so great about these events; somebody else will get to use what does not suit me, and if it's left behind, it goes to charity.

The dress: It used to be my best friend's mother's dancing lessons dress, made from a fabric they got from their American great-aunt (or was it their aunt and my friend's great-aunt?). It does not fit me perfectly, but for a while it was one of the best dresses I had (and, come to think of it, still is). I graduated from Grammar school in it, and was inaugurated into university in it, and wore it to a ball. There were some fabric scraps, too, that I made into my first headband ever, which started it all (I now wear headbands/headscarves almost all the time).
When I arrived to the Grammar school graduation exam, one of my classmates told me what a nice "retro" dress I had. I did not tell her it was the real thing.


This sort of wrap-up post makes me feel less sorry about getting rid of that old pair of shoes. I should do it more often; perhaps I'd be able to get rid of more things I'm not using anymore.

My mom's dancing lessons dress

Remember the yellow belt I wore with my Miss Barbora outfit? It comes from this dress:

It was my mom's dancing lessons dress. It's a tradition here in the Czech Republic to attend dancing lessons around the age of 15. (Which I gladly broke, because I had no taste for spending Friday evenings with my classmates and the rest of the town. I preferred going to Christian youth meetings which usually take place at weekends. It was more fun. So now I can't dance.) Anyway, that's why I deduce it's from 1972. It looks quite like that time, too.
It was made by my grandma. It started out with a short full skirt, then that skirt was replaced by this long one. I have the short one, too, but I didn't take a photo of it. Maybe later. It has a very generous hem, about 10 cm (4 inch) folded down, so I'm contemplating cutting a bit of that and making it a waistband and a wearable skirt out of it. I have remnants of the lace, too, so I could also make myself a headband to match the belt... possibilities.

I don't think I'm going to wear this dress. With a squint, it fits, but not quite. It's too tight at the neck, and generally a teeny bit tight, probably because I'm not 15 anymore (it might have fit me at 15, but at that time it was still lingering around my grandma's house, forgotten by the whole world). And it's a bit too long. For the photos, I wore shoes that are not mine (they're waiting to go to Oonaballoona in a swap - sorry, Oona). They are conveniently yellow. They also have about 8 cm high heels - much too much for my comfort, which shows in my stiff posture in these photos. Still, I was stepping on the skirt. That long. I have shorter legs than my mom, although otherwise I've inherited much of her looks.


There's a pleated row of flowers cut from the lace running down the front, embelished by rhinestones. You can't see much of it in the photo, but it's there. The same thing goes on on the loose ends/ties of the belt, and on the bottom hem of the short skirt, where unfortunately some of the rhinestones are missing.

My Miss Barbora hat

I've been admiring these floppy hats for some time. Actually, it's easily traceable back to January 2010, when I saw Play It Again, Sam - Diane Keaton wears a fine specimen of the kind there... And then they started popping up everywhere. Like, you know, The Sartorialist. I've been on a one-eyed lookout for one ever since I found a 19th century one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
And now I have one! It's my birthday/Christmas gift from my friend, which I got yesterday - we're a bit behind, but I don't mind getting my gifts around Easter at all. Thanks, B. :-)
Miss Barbora is a character in the most popular Czech book, Saturnin. It was written in 1942 or so, but it's set in sort of a timeless floating bubble, so many people assume it takes place in 1920s or 30s, and I would, too, were it not for a little mention of dim-out. Miss Barbora is the book's narrator's sporty, spirited, elegant love interest. When father saw my new hat, he said I would need the proper clothes to wear with it, and when I asked what he had in mind, he said "I don't know, something like what Miss Barbora would wear."

This is what I wanted to wear on Saturday and did not. With the hat, because, wow, it matches the dress perfectly!
The dress is from clothes exchange, apparently homemade (by a skilled seamstress) or custom-made, because there's no tag in it and no indication that there ever was one.
The blouse is my sister's. The best thing to go with that dress (which is a bit indecent for my comfort on its own), but, as father also noticed, still not quite perfect. I think I'll take heed of his advice that it needs something short-sleeved, and will try to make myself a short-sleeved version of my sister's blouse. Anyway, thanks, Marta, for allowing me to borrow it. :-) The neckline is perfect for the dress. It's Indian, cotton, embroidered white on white. And it has a bit of a peasant feel about it, worn under the dress this way, it would need something crisper. I seriously think these floppy hats need to be paired with something crisp to look really good.
The belt has a history. It was made by my Wonderful Crafty Grandma, for my mom, as part of my mom's dancing lessons dress. That puts it back into, most probably, 1972. The dress to go with it looks quite that date, too. It's been long lost, until mom somehow discovered the dress, with the belt and the short skirt of its first incarnation, tucked away somewhere at grandma's place. It must have been put away right after she came home from the dance, because it smelled of sweat and there were mudstains on it... Anyway, I finally got around to washing it (by hand) - the mudstains did not go completely yet, but the belt is good for wearing, so I tried it with this blue dress and liked the effect.

And now the big question... do you think I could wear this to a wedding? Should I try to make the blouse to go with it in a month's time, when I have other things to make, and am not even sure I have the proper material? I think I want to, but would like to know what others think... I still have another option.