Mucha Ado About Nothing

Ha! See what I did there? (Feel free to groan aloud if you like.)

I've been interested in 10s and 20s styles for a while now. The silhouette is so different from the waist-conscious styles that I typically wear that it just feels really fresh and fun. Of course, one of the reasons that I gravitate so much towards styles with a nipped in waist is that it's flattering on me, as it is on a lot of women, but I was so in love with all the fabulous deco dames out there that I finally had to take the plunge.

I actually got this dress from Asos back in January and never featured it, despite wearing it twice. It is a bitch and a half to photograph for a couple of reasons - the peachy pink color is only a little darker than my skin, which can make me look very washed out, and it needs some styling help to really make it work on me. Besides the photography issues, it would also have seemed a little counterproductive to feature a new dress while I was on a shopping ban.

One of the reasons that I've avoided drop-waist, loose styles like this is that I worried they would make me look like a brick. It turns out that... well, yeah, actually, that's pretty accurate. Here are a couple of pictures from the first time that I wore it, last month.

And here is is again, with a couple of styling changes.

Fun fact - I feel down my back stairs coming out to get these pictures and spent several minutes trying to find my camera in the snow. Also, it was 20 degrees out! Hence the high beams. I hope you don't mind the reminder that I, in fact, have nipples.

There are only a couple of things that I did differently here, but I think they made a bit difference - I added a belt and I flattened out my boobs a little bit.

Belting a drop waist dress kind of seems to defeat the purpose of having one, but I don't think it looks too bad. This belt (which is actually the ribbon belt that came with the sweater I wore in my outfit post a couple of weeks ago) is light enough, and tied loosely enough, that I don't think it distorts the silhouette that much. If anything, I think it just brings it a bit earlier into the 20s, or maybe the late 10s. 

I feel like the bra is what really makes the biggest difference, though. It makes sense - just like a bullet bra makes those 50s dresses look their best, minimizing my bust makes sense for a 20s style frock. 

At first I didn't want anything that would show with the low back, but this almost looks like it's part of the dress. Certainly nothing to worry over, and the shape it gives with this dress is much better than with the padded bra I was wearing in the first photos.

This is a really fun dress, but I have to admit that it's not the best on me. And that's totally ok! I'm glad that I bought it, just because now I'm not wondering if 20s styles would be secretly great on me. They are, at best, ok on me, so long as they're not too 20s and so long as I batten down the boob hatches (wow, that makes for a weird mental image). 

And in case you were wondering, I'm still setting myself monthly challenges. My challenge for this month - be a tourist in my own city. There's so much to see and do here, but I'm terrible about making the effort to get out and enjoy it. This month, I'm going to try and visit some areas of the city that I have either never made it out to or don't make it out to enough. I'm also going to try a new bar or restaurant, and I'd really like to visit a museum as well. Lots of fun in store this month, I think!