A Pretty 50s Shirt Dress

I have a confession to make about this outfit post, the pictures were taken all the way back in June. I was looking through my photos and had forgotten all about these. I got Rob to take a few pictures of me as I needed one to include with my interview for Period Living Magazine. It seemed a shame not to use them on here.

The dress is one I bought last year at Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair for about £40. I absolutely love it, but don’t wear it that often as it takes forever to iron. There’s a lot of fabric there and I hate ironing! It is the perfect shirt waister dress though and reminds me of Betty Draper’s dresses in the first series of Madmen.

The pictures were taken in my garden, which is absolutely huge but totally out of control! We absolutely loved it when we moved here and it was one of the things that made us choose the house. However as neither of us is very green fingered we’re fighting a constant battle to stop it becoming a wilderness!

The bench in the top picture, used to be a bench in Battersea Park. I bought it last year and the previous owner told me where it was from. I love having old things which tell a story and like to think of all the people who enjoyed sitting on it when it lived in one of my favourite parks.

My sandals are from Primark, and I wore them so much this summer that they eventually fell apart! They were so comfortable!

My bangles are from various car boot sales and charity shops. They are all plastic apart from one of the black ones which was a lucky bakelite find and cost a mere 50p from a charity shop in Sutton.

I’m wearing a full petticoat under the dress for these pictures. I don’t usually wear one under my circle dresses as I find them really annoying, but I do love how pretty 50s dresses look with one.