Almost a year ago now I interviewed Mary and Clare, who are sisters and the founders of Allium B. Mary and Clare, who both had successful careers in fashion, were disillusioned with the style, fit and quality of dresses on the High Street and so set about designing their own range of versatile, simple but statement, "forever" dresses. For anyone interested in the rest of the interview, you can read it here.
Roll on nearly a year and Mary and Clare asked me to choose a couple of designs of their dresses to wear on Style Guile. With my stash of summer dresses severely depleted, with some warm weather promised, being short of time (and with lots of dresses being short of hem), the offer couldn't have come at a better time. The very next day the dresses were on my doorstep. Perfect!
The first dress that I chose was the Eliza dress (£89) which was designed to celebrate Allium B's first birthday. The liberty print, retro feel and the fact that I felt that a proper "summer" dress was the order of the day, made this an easy choice. Just for the purposes of perspective, the model is 5 ft 7" but I'm not sure what size dress she is wearing. I am 5 ft 6" and wearing the size 8, which I found came up true to size.
As the day dawned bright and clear for our weekend away, I knew that it was a now or never moment. I really like the neat fit on the top half and the way that the dress nips in at the waist but then has enough room in the skirt to make it possible to walk/bend down/surf down the sand dunes (sorry, no pictures of that particular activity).
The straps on this dress are wide enough to make it possible to wear a normal bra without it showing. For me that's great because if there's one thing I would be likely to forget to take on a weekend away it's a strapless bra (or perhaps a child.)
I've really included this photograph for the spectacular shot of the seagull, the sun and the scenery. With converse instead of heels, the dress was a good beach/crabbing option.
Even bending down and sorting out crab bait wasn't a problem. Well, not for the dress, at least!
Sun dresses can be tricky the older one gets! There's a fine line to tread between being cool and exposing too much flesh. The length of this dress is a real bonus for someone like me who doesn't like to show a lot of leg and I like the fact that the wide straps and the cut of the neckline mean that I don't feel too exposed but nor am I too covered up either. We just need a few more sunny days now. As I mentioned, I have two dresses to try, so I hope to bring you photographs of the other one really soon.....
Allium B have kindly offered any blog readers/clients of mine an exclusive discount of 20% off any full price dress. Please just quote code SG20 any time now between today and the end of July. Happy shopping!
