Yesterday at midday we wandered down to Hyde Park. I put on this dress which I have never had the opportunity to wear, because it doesn’t fit me. The waist is right, the shoulders are right, but the bust is just too small. I wasn’t able to try it on in store and bought it online. Even though I have other dresses the same brand in the same size, this dress is just impossible for me. This makes me sad, so I thought a single photo shoot to send her off would be fun.
This is the Holiday in Nice dress from Wheels and Dollbaby. I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it. I’m a fiend for gingham and this comes with little lace edged hemline and lace edged cap sleeves. The underskirt has this velvet ribbon trim that makes it look a little like you a wearing bloomers.
I partnered the dress with my trusty straw boater that I bought in Nice, France. It wasn’t until later that I remember the dress referenced Nice and I patted myself on the back for being so clever. Of course this hat and dress go together. How obvious. I thought about timing this post with Bastille Day (July 14) but that didn’t work out.
I took some red books with me as I thought the colour would go best with the dress. I initially hoped to take my delicate leather edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam but I couldn’t find it. I did discover some of my much used uni books and settled for Stephen Fry’s ‘The Ode Less Travelled’, which was a go to resource during my Poetry units and ‘Waiting for Godot’ which I studied last year.
The sun was bright and the grass was damp, the wet soaked a little through the picnic blanket a little. It was the textbook definition of a glorious winter day. Standing in the sun was too hot and the skies were clear. The very next day (as I’m writing this) Perth has been drenched with intense storms, thunder, strong winds and rain so heavy the city skyline has been obliviated in opaque white. The best life lesson we can learn from this is: picnic today, for tomorrow there may be rain.
Hat: Pimkie in Nice, France
Cardigan: Miss Behavin, Ballarat (in store only)
Dress: Holiday in Nice dress (sold out), Wheels and Dollbaby.
Belt: Thrifted
Shoes: Sandler
Bracelet: Custom typewriter keys in my name by Lally
Earrings: vintage clip on pearls inherited from my great grandmother
Location: Hyde Park
Photos: Stu Rapley
Stu did his usual brilliant job of taking pictures, but this week we had a mishap in which Stu had quite a bad fall which abruptly finished our shoot. All the romantic, twisted tree roots ended up being quite a hazard but luckily nothing was broken. He is recovering with some bad bruises and a stiff and sore neck. He was proudly telling his friends over dinner that he ‘fell out of a tree’. It did feel like he had been set upon by a mischievous Middle Earth wood, snatching at his feet with their wriggling roots.
What’s a picnic without a good blanket throw?
Each week when I work on a new look, we take over 900 photos. I cull these down to about 50 and then go from there. I have recently started making animated gifs from the image sequences and putting them on my Tumblr. This new idea is so much fun for me at the moment and I get really excited about these little animations. If you want to see them, head over to my Tumblr where I post a couple each week.
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