wearsmymoney blog. October 22nd, 2022
All the autumn dresses. We are into part three of the ‘things you asked me to feature’ trilogy. I love boots and I also love coats, but the extra love I have for a really good autumnal dress runs deep. I mean I’m a general dress fan at all times of the year, but when the nights draw in and the temperature falls down then the REALLY good dresses come out. Also, it helps that my two favourite dress materials are corduroy and velvet. And at this time of year the dresses tend to be less fitted and more flowing, which neatly coincides with roast potato and red wine season.
Johanna Sands modelling her own Rosa corduroy dress
My natural fashion habitat is very much more winter than summer. In the summer there’s just so much upkeep – shaving, tanning, waxing, to name but three. In the winter you can just let yourself go a bit. For example, I only tan my ankles, and they are generally the only bit of flesh I have on show past 1st October.
Kemi Telford Tokunbo corduroy dress
At this point I should introduce those who are new to the group to the joys of ‘secret leggings’ (if you’ve been around for a while you can skip to the clothes section now). ‘Secret leggings’ are just a little trick I discovered some years ago whereby instead of tights, which can be a pain, you just wear short leggings under your dresses. This gives you some warmth, but also gives the illusion you are bare-legged, so it’s a win-win situation in my book.
I just buy cheap black leggings from Primark and cut them to the desired length so they won’t show under my dresses. Obviously this will only work if you favour midi or maxi dresses; if you’re going ‘short short’, you may have to stick to your 100 deniers (more on those later). Surprisingly, the cheap leggings don’t unravel or fray in the wash even when they’ve been roughly cut with the kitchen scissors and, actually, that one £4 pair I bought from Primark are now in their fourth year of use.
Beulah navy velvet Astor dress
Regular readers can come back in the room now. Let’s get on with looking at the dresses…
SMALL BRAND DRESSES
We shall start with some of my favourite small brands. Again, regular readers will no doubt be aware of some, if not all, of these as I do like to support them when I can.
We shall start with some of my favourite small brands. Again, regular readers will no doubt be aware of some, if not all, of these as I do like to support them when I can. All of the brands featured are owned and run by women. Many of them are owned and run by the actual designers, so you know when you buy from these labels that your hard-earned money (and I know a lot of these are NOT cheap) is going direct to the people that come up with the styles, run the Instagram, the website, the shop and, in some cases, even lovingly and personally pack the dresses to send to you.
