Outfit Post: My Favorite Summer Dress

It’s not acting like August this week in Chicago, which makes my plan of focusing on summer clothes feel kind of silly.

Nevertheless, here is my current favorite dress: Lindy Bop’s Lily dress. I have been wearing this dress everywhere, and yet, it proves to be difficult to photograph. We’ve been shooting it all summer, and either the dress or my face (admittedly, it’s usually my face) looks odd in pictures.

I love it so much because it’s:

• Gorgeous.
• So comfortable–it’s got a little bit of (not vintage) stretch.
• Easily dressed up or down
• Wearable with or without a crinoline
• Blue. I love blue dresses. I would buy every blue dress, left to my own devices.
• Floral–I am finally recovering from years of avoiding florals. I wore a LOT of florals as a teenager-young adult, and I was convinced they made me look like a fundamentalist. Suddenly, I’m into them again.

I’ve accessorized this dress several ways–I often add a little cardigan. It doesn’t really call for a necklace or much in the way of jewelry, because the keyhole detailing on the neckline, which hard to see in photos. There are three key holes on the front and back. Check out the Lindy Bop picture–much clearer.

The shoes are Angel Steps, from Amerimark, where lots of their shoes are very vintage looking, without being actual reproductions. The socks are tiny beige crocheted anklets from Target.

The piece du resistance is my hair flower–made of a recycled zipper from Re-zip It, a gift from my mom. My hair is growing out a bit (stop it, you pixie-lovers! I’m letting it grow!) so I did a little 60’s style mini-bouffant, which promptly fell.

For a dedicated thrifter, paying more than $10 for a new dress is a teensy bit shocking, but sometimes it’s worth it to get exactly what you want.

I think I’ll get several summers of wear out of this one.