I made this ball dress in 2004, for a conference function we were attending in the Louvre in Paris, where I couldn’t look underdressed. It was an important event in our calendar and I needed to dress to impress. Thankfully I think I looked suitably presentable. I remember being super happy with my dress and the very glamorous Parisian evening. The dress is still in my wardrobe, so I must still feel good about it!
Since then I have worn this dress to three other balls and about three or four other things, so it is my most worn formal dress. At the time of its construction, Grecian goddess-y looks were quite fashionable so I was inspired by that trend. But as it turns out this is quite a classical design that I really do love, so I’m sure I will wear it again in the future too. On one occasion I made an appropriately styled headpiece and handtorch from cardboard, aluminium foil and gold cellophane and went to a costume ball as the Statue of Liberty, and had my picture snapped for the newspaper as a result. My picture in the paper is not a common occurrence! At the mo’ I can’t find a picture of that outfit, but if I do I’ll put it up here…
I made it using Vogue 2480, out of silk satin in two shades, that has additionally a (synthetic?) thread running through it to make it subtly sparkly. The two colours are oyster white for the underdress, and a coolly subdued sage green for the top part of the dress. I love the draped design at the left hip, as well the long skirt has a beautifully shaped little train at the back that I think is very flattering. The only slightly strange thing about the pattern is that as the draping is all on the left side of the dress, the invisible zip closure is on the right side.
So, obviously this is not a daily outfit post, but I had my hair done the other day and I’m not one to let a good hair day go to waste. I haven’t shown this dress here yet, and I decided the day of a professional ‘do is a good day to do this dress justice. Plus I’m anticipating Me-Made-March ’11 coming up and a daily outfit post for a whole month… (oh dear) and I don’t want to risk boredom by OD-ing on the daily outfit post thing. You’ll get enough of that soon enough. I’m just worried that if the weather doesn’t co-operate (by that I mean cool down just a tad) I will definitely be the most boring participant in this challenge because the same few little sundresses are just going to appear day after day. I would really like to avoid that scenario. Let’s face it, the same outfit over and over is… totally not exciting.
Details:
Dress; Vogue 2480, oyster white and sage green silk satin
Shoes, Nina, from David Jones
