Gosh, you know, I've never owned a single paisley print item until this dress. It surprised me actually because I quite like paisley. It is such a whimsical print and I was excited when I saw this dress had it in such a pretty magenta!
I picked this dress up from
The Cleveland Shop while I was up there for
All Balboa Weekend, a four day long dancing event that also happens to have vintage and vintage reproduction vendors from the area participate. That equals dangerous ground for my pocket book. Dancing plus vintage in one spot?! Hide, wallet, hide!
This isn't the first dress I've gotten from
The Cleveland Shop. I picked up a perfectly lovely green floral one at the last dancing weekend I had as well, which happened to be in Raleigh. I wore it to my first craft fair and you can click
here to see that outfit. I loved that dress and was super excited to get to browse that shop's offerings again.
This dress looks to be a late 50s, early 60s piece in fuchsia, green, and white. It has a front zipper, a fun button flap neckline, and a full skirt where the paisley print increases in size toward the bottom. I did a lot of work to this dress. It fit my waistline when I bought it, but the bust and shoulders were way to big. I figured this would be a perfect alterable dress because the print would mask my junior level sewing skills. I took in the bust about 4 inches and raised the shoulders by 4 inches as well. That made the sleeve openings slightly smaller but I actually liked that, so no harm done.
The original button at the neckline was a matching magenta one that needed to be moved over to accommodate my alterations. I decided to replace that button with a vintage domed white one to add a bit of contrast to the already very pink dress. The original belt in the same paisley fabric was actually still with this dress, but again, because the print is quite prominent I decided to make a belt that would break up the dress a bit and help define my waist. To make the belt, I used the bottom of a green jersey dress that I had hemmed earlier and had saved the fabric. Because jersey doesn't fray I was able to just cut the fabric and leave the edge unfinished. I have a bag of vintage buckles so I selected a white plastic one that matched my button neckline and just pulled the green fabric sash though to use. The back is just tied in a loose bow.
I tried to keep the accessories pretty low-key so as not to overwhelm the look. I made a bobby pin flower in a magenta color and the center is one of my grandmother's brooches. For jewelry, I decided to just wear a ring because my neckline was already embellished by the dress and you couldn't see my ears with my pin curls. "
Harriet", an antique hydrangea
button ring from my
shop, was a perfect understated accessory that still brought out some of the green hiding in the dress pattern.
I got to try out my new pink lipstick too! I never wore lipstick before this year. I purchased my first red lipstick several months ago to try out a 40s style lip and quickly fell in love. This is only my second lipstick purchase and I'm thrilled with it too! I think it pairs quite perfectly with my dress color!
I didn't get dolled up for nothing. The hubs and I went out for Mexican food and sangrias at my very favorite restaurant in Raleigh,
Centro. Yum!!
Belt: Made by me from vintage buckle and jersey
Shoes: Express
Lipstick: Mineral Fusion "Intensity"
Last Week's Sunday Snag:
