Thursday 27 August 2015

The Colour Collaborative: August: Dress


I decided to take this month's prompt quite literally; no interpretive stuff this time around. You see, I do own a few dresses. Not many, just a handful of them and most of those I've had for years. So some of them may look familiar to readers who've been visiting the blog for a while now...


First of all is my favourite dress. I don't generally believe in keeping things 'for best' but this one - well, it was bought many moons ago on a birthday trip to Paris. It's silk. It took up almost all of my birthday money. I don't want to snag it or stain it, so it's strictly for posh events - or those not involving Joe (probably explains why it's so seldom worn).

These colours. I do love them so. The print too, so old-fashioned and vintage-looking. But the colours most of all. In a way they reflect the rest of my wardrobe; if you open the doors and stand back you'll see it's predominantly inky blues, creams, brick reds. Add a healthy splash of grey and that pretty much covers it.


I'm not a pastel person. Rich shades and muted hues attract me. There's the occasional bright to punctuate this: red wellies, a yellow mac, a fuchsia-pink floral scarf from Krakow. 

But this love of rich and muted goes beyond my wardrobe. It applies to my home and garden too. I much prefer a deep crimson peony to a pale pink one, a dark purple cornflower to a chalky blue. Mustard yellow trumps lemon every time, and I like my shades of orange burnt.


It probably explains why I like this part of the summer most of all. The softer hues have given way to the more painterly colours as dahlias, rudbeckias and chrysanthemums start to dominate. And after that the sere, smoky, earthy shades of autumn.


As for dresses themselves... I tend to follow a script. Boxy shapes, loose-fitting. Sack dresses and tunic-style frocks do it for me. Easy, comfortable. Best worn with woolly tights and maybe even something long-sleeved underneath.


I favour stripes and checks over polka dots and ditsy florals. Folksy details rather than sparkle. Strong, serviceable and often with pockets.

Most of them were bought in sales. I prefer to buy quality and wear something for many years.


Jeans are my uniform of choice, so if something can be worn over them... well, it's going to see an awful lot of wear. 


And some dresses come to the rescue every time. A stone-coloured linen number (another sale find) is a wedding/Christening/party stalwart. I love it very much.


It's the only linen item of clothing I own but I can see why people swear by the stuff. It washes and irons beautifully and seems to improve with age. It hangs well and feels incredibly soft against the skin.


So there you have it: dresses and colours. Simple, really. You choose what you like, you buy (or make) it and then you wear it. Over and over again. There's nothing wrong with having a formula that works; I find it fascinating to see how we're all attracted to particular and often very specific colours. It represents so much more than whether something 'suits' us or not.

Don't forget to visit the other Colour Collaborative blogs for more of this month's posts, just click on the links below.


What is The Colour Collaborative?

All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.




21 comments:

  1. I'm a dress girl I much prefer wearing them to jeans or trousers & being a brunette favour much stronger colours too x

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  2. Some lovely dresses, I like to see how people gravitate towards certain colours. Linen is gorgeous isn't it, I can never bear to get rid of anything linen. Even if I don't wear it any more it's cut up and made into something else. CJ xx

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  3. tunics over jeans is as dressy as I get. love your rich colours and but most of all I love those blue and white stripes x

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  4. I do like your redcurrant necklace.

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  5. Dresses have such personality, don't they, and get better with age. I love your collection xo

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  6. I love the print on the first dress, gorgeous. You are right, anything that can go over jeans or be worn with tights will get way more wear. That's true in this house.

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  7. love your rowanberry necklace!

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  8. I love a nice dress but have very few. Cycling to work doesn't make it easy to wear a nice frock for the day... I like simple single colour dresses most (but not exclusively). Your Paris dress is lovely. x

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  9. That lovely blue dress is exactly the kind of thing I'd wear, but always over jeans or leggings ... I do like me a nice inky blue. And pockets, a girl can never have too many pockets!

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  10. You own some lovely dresses, Sarah. I agree, it's great to have things that can be worn in different ways. I only have a handful of dresses, but I really love to wear tunic blouses and sweaters that I can put over long skirts or leggings. Your plaid dress reminds me of the ones we wore in the 90's, grunge-era flannel baby-doll dresses over black tights and docs.

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  11. You've got some lovely dresses! I would go for all those too, especially that gorgeous inky blue one with the orange necklace. Gorgeous. x

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  12. I love your choice of colours and most of all I love that coral necklace!

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  13. I had a pair of linen trousers, that I wore and wore, till they were see through. I miss them. No dresses for me. Someone once said she looked in her wardrobe and saw oatmeal, everything porridge coloured. Love taupe!

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  14. You have some beautiful dresses, especially your best one and the one with the coral necklace. I have been wearing more dresses, but like you, my uniform is jeans really! xx

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  15. Oh you have some beautiful dresses! I would wear all of these too, and probably live in that blue one, if I had it. I really need to keep an eye out for one like that :-)

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  16. I love the print and colour of your 'best dress' – gorgeous. They're all pretty gorgeous!

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  17. Love the dresses. And the colours are brilliant.

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  18. Lovely dresses! Wish there was a photo showing the whole linen dress. I love linen and have 3 dresses in linen. Thank you for letting us see your beautiful dresses!

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  19. A great blog and beautiful photos of things we quite often take for granted :)

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  20. Hey Sarah,
    My favourite dress is a yellow linen number that I bought from Seasalt. I never thought I would suit sych a bright colour, what with me being a strawberry blonde with freckles. But it turns out that I do! I do tend to go for the chambray/denim look usually. I rather like yours, especially with the orange beads. Right up my alley.
    Leanne xx

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  21. I love the way you point out that we buy or make the same thing! I have a lot of chambray and denim blue and a lot of navy and white stripes but my favourite dress of the moment was given to me by a friend who can't wear it any more because of scoliosis. It is a deep burnt orange and black, entirely out of my normal colour spectrum, but it looks great and I love it!

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