Back it up

Dress shopping. It's a minefield.

I've been browsing the inter webs for most of the day today looking for the perfect dress for a tricky wedding situation. It's a pretty posh affair in a swanky London hotel so must be relatively smart, must be figure flattering as dearest Daddy will be there and he always manages to sneak some comment in about my waistline, and must be on a budget as all my spare pennies are going towards my own wedding. The sales are all down to tiny girl sizes, (Closet at Dorothy Perkins has some stonking dresses in their sale if you're a size 14 or below) my usual resources for more affordable fashion (namely Boohoo.com) all seem to be either too casual or cut way too far above the knee and I just can't justify shelling out over £50 at Fever no matter how perfectly cut their dresses are. It's all highly frustrating!

But I have found a little something to lift my mood as I continue to search. Seller LEKGALENG on Etsy has some really novel tops and dresses that I just had to share.

Pretty standard vest top from the front...

Party in the back!

Some of the designs are a little bright for my taste, especially the ones where te vest part is coloured rather than black, but I like the boldness and simplicity of the tattoo-inspired designs

These two will cost you will cost you around £21 a piece including delivery (from Thailand)

This one is more like £25 and they do dresses too...

Perhaps slightly risque on the bum clevage front this one, but I'm totally drawn to it. If I were a touch more rock, had a spare £27, and had boobies small enough to go without a bra I would totally buy this dress.

Then I'd probably immediately wonder where on earth I'd wear it. Certainly not to a swanky London wedding. *sigh*

Oh so lovely Jennifer Lily

I wish I were one of those people who just happened to be lucky with Charity and Vintage shops. Some of my friends can walk in there and walk out again with armfuls of bargains and be delightlfully smug with themselves that not only are they being kind to the environment, but nobody's going to be wearing the same dress as them at parties. Me, when I go into these places, I seem to be confronted with walls of mothball smelling christmas sweaters, sad looking winter coats and endless poorly tailored trousers, none of which will be remotely my size.

Vintage online can be a similar minefield, if you do happen to find something you adore which hasn't been marked up 200% by the fashion savvy opportunist, it's more than likely to be made for one of the rail thin lovelies that seemed to grace all highstreets back in the day. Honestly, I'm forced to imagine that either nobody was a "normal" size back then, or all the vintage size 16s took their clothes with them to the big swap shop in the sky.

So imagine by joy when I came accross Jennifer Lilly Clothing. An Etsy shop full of flatteringly shaped and made to measure dresses in the most adorable range of vintage print cottons imaginable and at less than high street prices (which you don't get often for hand made!)

I've already bought a couple of her vintage cardigans (swift delivery and freshly laundered, no hint of mothball here!), but now I'm swooning after this:

For only £22.49 plus about £4 postage

and this:

For the same price. Look at the lovely lace collar! There's even a choice of length for those not so confident about their knees.

Oh Jennifer Lilly, I heart you. And when I have some more pennies your dresses will be mine!