Outfit: Playing Dress Up

It’s funny, I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a bit of a fear to looking as though I’m wearing ‘fancy dress’ which is why I’ve always held back from going completely retro when rocking my 50’s style dresses. And it isn’t because I think it’s silly – I follow more than a handful of gorgeous pin-up girls on Instagram and regularly chastise myself for not having the courage to just go for it. I think it’s more to do with not enjoying the feeling that I’m drawing attention to myself. Turns out though, despite this, a hell of a lot of my wardrobe actually lends itself perfectly to that kind of occasion! Weirdly, while the idea of being mistaken for someone in fancy dress makes me feel all uncomfortable, actually wearing legitimate fancy dress is something I really enjoy – go figure. I really wasn’t kidding when I said I was a walking contradiction!

When we recently held a fancy dress themed night for one of our work socials, most of my colleagues ran around in a complete flap trying to work out who they could go as without spending too much money, while I smugly knew I already had the perfect outfit sat in my closet – and all made up of things I wear day to day! Well, maybe not the shoes, but I don’t own them just for fancy dress purposes so you get what I mean! I’ve been talking about how well these pieces would make a Dorothy outfit for ages and I finally got my chance (though it did help that my other half sits on the social committee, so he may or may not have been instrumental in choosing the theme ‘your favourite character’…!) I lost count of how many times people said, ‘I can’t believe you already owned all this stuff!’ though I did feel a tiny bit embarrassed that actually, there were quite a few other outfits I could have worn without going shopping. We all know I could pull a sailor outfit out of the bag at a moments notice for a start! And I’ve definitely got the Minnie Mouse look down already….

Which favourite character would you have gone as?

Love,

In this post: ‘Marlene’ Dress, Lindy Bop (Similar) – White Tee Shirt, Primark (Similar) – ‘Keanah 2’ Glitter Shoes, Ted Baker (Similar)