Is It Nearly Christmas? Navabi Dress Review

Now you may say it’s too early, you may say it’s bad luck even, but I don’t care. It’s approaching the festive season and I couldn’t be more excited. Party dresses? Baileys? The Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special? Bring it to me. We’re heading into my favourite time of year so let the leaves fall, bring the cosy nights and reruns all evening, I want it all. 

What is never too early in my opinion is planning your wardrobe for the party season. Whilst I have some favourite dresses I keep and wheel out most years I also like to try something new and see what’s out there. I find this can be quite tricky when you’re plus sized as there’s not as many stores and not as much choice available for us. There are often a lot of returns, so having to fork out for several at a time to find the right one and often the quality is just lacking. Am I right? I sometimes dread going into shops only to be disappointed so I am a big fan of shopping online, even if I do have to get more than one at a time to find the right fit. 

This is a reason I was thrilled to be asked to review a dress from Navabi. I first became aware of Navabi through the fabulous plus size goddess/blogger/instagrammer Danielle Vanier. Everything she wears looks incredible and she launched her very own range with Navabi, so inspirational and is just one of her acts of showing the world that plus size fashion deserves a place and the space that every other straight size line out there has. Danielle, we thank you. 

So this is how I came to discover Navabi, I loved that there were options out there that were more designer led rather than just cheaper fast fashion. A place where you could buy some quality pieces that you weren’t worried about how many washes you’d get out of it. From my experience there aren’t that many high end high street options for us plus size ladies so Navabi really helps fill that gap in the market. 

I’m a big believer of not shying away from colour, when I was younger I wore only black. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to wear black, I love to feel like a Disney villain, but I have now embraced colour and especially contrast. Life is too short to hide in the back in something I want to hide myself in, I have bright red hair and I feel most confident when the dye is fresh and the clothes make it pop. So it seemed obvious for me to review a green dress, I’ve actually never owned a fully green dress that would make me feel like Poison Ivy, so the choice was easy. 

A few days later and the Manon Baptiste dress was here. What a thing of beauty, green cotton lace, little sleeves, nipped in at the waist with a ribbon belt and a fabulous swishy skirt that made me feel like the cute little octopus in Finding Nemo. It’s knee length which is my favourite, I struggle with floor length glam dresses and to be honest, I just love to twirl. I’m 5”2 so it was an inch or so below the knee for me. The arms are always a worry for me, I feel like plus size retailers often don’t have proper fit models so the arms are always too tight and you feel like you’re bursting out of a sausage skin. They fitted wonderfully and I feel like I could have done the macarena in ease at the office Christmas party. Winner. 

The dress isn’t too heavy so you don’t feel like you’ll end up sweating buckets on the dancefloor and end up running to the looks to put paper towels under your bra line...no? Just me? Cool. But heavy enough to still give you that swish and feel like it’ll withstand a mixed load after a night out. The dress also has 3% elastane  which I prefer as it hugs a bit more comfortably. 

The ribbon tie belt is a really nice touch, I might jazz it up with some sparkles but I’m not sure yet. It’s just a loose piece so you can adjust the tightness yourself or not use it all, because of the lace on the dress you don’t really notice the belt loops so could easily get away with not wearing it if you didn’t fancy it.

There are so many gorgeous pieces on the site but the party dress section just has to be my favourite, the Manon Baptise dress is also currently on sale at £91 also so go have a nose! Meanwhile I’ll be itching to get my decorations up, chilling the Baileys and practicing that perfect Christmas party hairstle from Pinterest...only two months to go!

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My Birthday Weekend In Amsterdam

This weekend marked my 27th birthday. I keep forgetting I'm in my 20s and I'm still waiting to feel like a proper 'grown up', does anyone else feel like that? I'll start acting like a grown up soon I promise...maybe!

Excuse the posey pics, this was my hair for the travels!

I decided to spend the weekend in Amsterdam with my best friend Sarah. My birthday was on the Saturday so we left Friday night and came back on Sunday. We landed at in Schiphol and got a private shuttle to our hotel, The Albus. We did a lot of research for hotels and where the best places were to stay in the city. Our lengthy Tripadvisor searches we went for The Albus, and it was brilliant! A 4 star digs in a European city, who could ask for more? A special shout out to Mariska on reception who greeted us and we clicked with straight away, so friendly and helpful and drew up loads of interesting places on our map for us to go to. After hearing it was my birthday the next day she sent up a bottle of fizz for us to enjoy which was a nice touch and really lovely so we downed that straight away. 

As it was late and we'd been traveling we went around the corner for a little Italian, they were so lovely in there and the food was gorgeous. Feed me cannelloni and I like you. We then headed down to the local square for a few drinks and a nose around to see what was about. 

 

Saturday was my birthday and I was gifted with glorious sunshine! After a lay in we strolled up into the center for some pancakes and took a tip into the Sex Museum, you can't not can you? It was terrifying/hilarious/strange/brilliant all rolled into one. A lot of pictures, art and life sized figures. They had a section with Bettie Paige and Marilin Monroe, I even set the alarm off once when I pointed into the set at a record I owned - it was extremely loud and embarrassing and I pretty much ran away!

We then spent the day strolling up and down the canals, had a peak at Anne Frank's house, the queue was insane so we just had a look. We then did some shopping and more sight-seeing and stopped for some hot chocolate. Suddenly we felt a bit lost and the map wasn't making any sense until Mariska rescued us! She saw us on the street looking puzzled and walked us back! ha. She also showed us some nice places for dinner.

 

When we got back we realised they'd sent up some another bottle for us! So we got into bed and got smashed watching the rugby players on TV. 

 

It suddenly got a bit late so decided it was time to get dolled up for my birthday meal. I bought this Lindy Bop dress before I went away (£34), I love the colour and it's nice and heavy so falls really nicely. I've got a big chest so I put a little strap top underneath so the girls weren't completely on show, I don't have enough structure going on under there to keep everything in place! 

 Excuse the filters...I just can't help it!

 I teamed it with the black cherry necklace I bought from H&M earlier that day and my Lindy Bop underskirt. I absolutely loved it and wore it out to the restaurant, which annoying I felt really self consious at. Every kept staring at me, and normally when you catch someone's gaze they look away? Nope! Kept staring, and not in a nice way so it made me feel really weird but I tried to ignore it. 

After the hefty meal we went out to an area called De Pup which had a lot of cool bars in, we drank loads so I have no idea how I didn't have a hangover in the morning. We decided to spend the rest of the day before going home doing some more shopping and seight-seeing. You can't visit Amsterdam without seeing the Red Light District, I'm quite happy we went during the day, half of the people there were the same as us - just curious. The other half were gross men getting their kicks and it did feel a bit awkward going down some of the extremely narrow streets with them behind. 

Then soon again we were back at Schiphol Airport, which by the way - was amazing. All other airports take note! They did it right, it was so easy and quick and the 40 minute plane ride was a dream. 

I just really loved this shop

I did enjoy my birthday weekend away, I loved Amsterdam in the day and the hotel was lovely. By night? It unfortunately didn't do much for me but I still had a great time with my bestie I would still go again but maybe in the summer :)

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Lindy Bop Black Myrtle Dress Review

Lindy Bop do beautiful and affordable rockabilly dresses, I've had my eye on a few for a while and I just couldn't resist this gorgeous black Myrtle dress, they do it in a few different colours like blue, red and green but black is the colour of my heart so I just had to have it. 

At a bargain price of £29.99 it was hard to not order more. Most of the dresses are either £29.99 or £34.99. I wasn't sure what the stretch was like so I ordered a size 20 due to the bad boys. It did come with an elasticated back so I could have gotten away with a smaller size but it still fit beautifully so I didn't worry. 

 Excuse the silly photos...can't pull normal faces!

I love the points on the top of the bust, very vixeny, I think I could do with spraying some starch on there as I was dancing a lot in it and they did sometimes flop a bit but not all the time. The cut is oh so flattering and I teamed it with a Lnidy Bop underskirt (£21.99) so it had a lot of swing in the end.

It's made out of a nice durable fabric so the price really is surprising but just because it seems cheaper it's of no less quality than my more expensive dresses so don't worry about that. Basically, I bloody love it and want to wear it almost every day...do you think I'd get away with it? haha. I recently wore it a wedding and even the bride told me how lovely my dress was, if that's not an endorsement I don't know what is!

 I now think I want this dress in all of the colours, they come in patterns too but the red does look very nice. I've also just bought on of their Ophelia dresses...so stay tuned.

I also did a great wetset on the front of my hair, I just want a huge fringe as I didn't want to commit to the whole hair as sometimes it doesn't always work for me and I used a curling tong for the rest and did some victory rolls. Maybe another tutorial is in order. 

They currently have 13% off! Go buy!

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I Made My Own Dress!

A bit over a year ago I attended dressmaking classes, my mum makes and sells clothes and costumes and I just wanted to learn how to do it myself, I also fount it difficult to find dresses that I loved so it was a nice idea.

Last year I made my first rockabilly dress in a cherry pattern, which I loved. I haven't really done much since but this month, well, a week ago actually I decided to make another. I had a hen party this weekend and the theme was purple...I did not have a purple dress so the obvious answer was to just make one...in a week! We have a new haberdashery up the road which is the cause of most of it, they have amazing fabric and I've been looking at some purple lace for a few weeks so took the plunge. It's called Bobb-in & Sew, and I will do a post about it on it's own soon as it's a gem as there are no good fabric shops around here that sell good quality materials. The best I have found elsewhere shred as soon as you need to unpick something and my machine would just chew it up.

I bought my pattern from there, along with the purple lace and some heavier black fabric for the lining. I wanted it to have some weight to it which I did and the fabrics worked really well together. I love rockabilly dresses and find if I get them to fit my bust they genereally don't fit everywhere else so making one seemed the obvious choice. 

I know you can alter patterns to fit before you make them but as I've only done a couple I prefer the make the dress as a whole and then adapt it to fit afterwards. What I loved was that I could pick the biggest size for the bust so I wasn't bursting out of it and it say high enough, but that I could still nip it in at the waist and have it flare out at the skirt. 

The hardest part was the pleats, they're really flattering but joining them up and making them even, to be honest, was a bit of a bitch. It took me several attempts. The back ones were relatively easy, but the front...oh, the front. They were double pleats on each section, four in total. One half was perfect but I just couldn't match up the other side according to the pattern so I just did it by looking, mirroring the other side. That was a big learning curve - that sometimes you have to be brave enough to freehand some parts. The only other bit I didn't really follow was to stitch a few inches down from the pleats - which if you have a slim figure it will fall beautifully. If you don't it will look like you're smuggling a beach ball under there. Ladies, don't stitch up the pleats if it doesn't just drop, it was quite funny though to be fair and it was only hand stitched so it was easy enough to fix. 

The top of the bodice had a full back and wide straps, I have a short top so the measurements were kinda out so I decided to gather the straps Grecian style which also flattened out the bust line as it was a bit baggy.

My favourite part has to be the skirt, it's so full and I really do love the pleats now that they're done and the fabric is beautiful. I will warn you that if you have to unpick lace - it's a nightmare, especially at midnight when you've sewn the zip wrong twice!

 I tried out some heavier pinup make-up, it's getting there! 
Happy with the victory rolls though.

I did have some help from the mothership, I'm not confident enough on zips yet so I need to practice that more. But generally it all went OK, apart from not checking that I have bought enough fabric and putting myself a day behind with a short deadline anyway. But for my second dress I'm insanely happy, I'm thinking of attempting a plain full skirt next that I can then wear with anything :) 

Here are a couple of other little shots from the weekend, everything else from it is secret of course! We sprayed some doughtnuts with gold shimmer spray and made some card diamonds to stick in them. It was also a spa weekend so we indulged in some massages and treatments. We did some cute hen party games and quizzes, had some amazing food and amazing cheesy dancing with the girls, the hen had a great time which is all that matters and they threw a great weekend!

 

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