Sometimes, you need a fancy dress. Sometimes you need that dress to be fancy enough to go out for dinner and a show but not quite so fancy that you can’t wear it all day. Sometimes, you accidentally purchase just such a dress because you underestimated its fanciness from the listing photos.
When I spotted this dress on instagram, I was so taken with the print and the tiny cape that I didn’t even realize that it was covered in sequins.
The bodice, the cape, and both the front and back skirt down to the hips are covered in sequin stems and swirls in slate blue, forest green, and silver, making the overall effect sparkly as all get-out in the right lighting. Fortunately, the effect in daytime light is a little more subtle (well, as subtle as one can get with a dress with a tiny cape…) so I figured it would work well enough as an all-day dress for wearing to do out and about things like going to coffee and church and the aquarium and dinner.
And, more importantly, it’s a fancy enough dress to wear out to see a show after dinner, even if the show in question is the touring production of Hamilton, which just happened to be in town and which I had swooped up tickets for way back in July and then kept secret so I could surprise my husband with them for his birthday on Sunday. The aquarium trip and dinner out were their own sort of birthday fun, but mostly a ruse to keep us in Boston and near the theater until showtime.
The show was, of course, amazing (the choreography is impressive, the performers were all great, I could go on but it would mostly be me waving my hands excitedly), and the theater was packed. We’d never been to a show in the Opera House before, so I was pleasantly surprised by how good our balcony seats were! And the surprise was very effective. Apparently I’m overdressed enough of the time that nothing seemed unusual at all!
A follow-up on my shoe review from a couple weeks ago—I wore my Royal Vintage “Greta” shoes since I knew I was going to be walking all around Boston. This is probably the third or fourth time I’ve worn them in total, and it was a good choice for the first 9000 steps (according to my Fitbit) but by the end of the night I’d walked almost 15000 and was ready to take them off. The leather still needs to stretch a bit for me to be comfortable wearing them for that long!
Assorted white hair flowers: Michael’s
Blue rhinestone earrings: Grandma’s
1940s novelty photographer print rayon dress: Bought on instagram from Lucky Vintage
Green leather and suede side button shoes: Royal Vintage Shoes “Greta”