As I put this outfit together I felt it was missing a certain 'je ne sais quoi.' Little did I know that 'je nai sais quoi' was a striped pink umbrella. Oh no, I thought about this outfit from head-to-toe; a little seashell hair clip to harken back to the sailor collar and retro inspiration of the dress, pinkish pumps with sparkly heels for a bit of balance to the longer length, and a whimsical basket purse to finish it all off because it's spring and all of my outfits feel more complete with a basket purse. The umbrella wouldn't have even entered my head if it hadn't been out of sheer necessity. You see this is the umbrella we keep in the trunk of our car for emergencies. It only came out because the weather turned wretched the instant we got to our destination. In Ireland they like to say that you can experience a whole year's worth of weather in a single day. On this day we seemed to experience at least half a year in a few hours. One minute the sun was out and it nearly felt like summer, the next minute it was as brisk as winter with rain and wind and I was desperate for my cardigan. But I was determined to get out, snap a few pictures, and just escape my house for a bit so on we went, umbrella in hand. Eventually the rain relented and we snapped a few pictures; I abandoned the basket purse but held on to the umbrella because turns out sometimes the element you least expect is what completes a look. This stripey number is a functional accessory, but it also reminds me of vintage parasols. A fitting match to this Art Deco nautical inspired dress; can't you imagine a Hollywood starlet from the 1930s strolling along the boardwalk in this dress with a lacey parasol in hand? That's one of my favorite things about Emmy Design's dresses--the look of authentic vintage. There's a mood to her pieces that keep her clothes feeling authentic without seeming like a costume. They remind me of the clothes people would have worn in a past decade, rather than some gimmicky projection of how modern Hollywood thinks people used to dress.
CONVERSATION