Simply Be Review – China Blue…

Yes, its been a while. I don’t believe in doing the whole announced ‘hiatius’ thing, especially as it was more my body and mind failing hard rather than me going ‘oh, I simply must take a break, life is sooooo taxing darling!’ (not that there is anything wrong with that, just my inner voice goes ‘no, keep going! don’t stop!’ usually).

Anyhoot, onto other things, namely one oh so pretty dress. I eyed this up at the A/W preview blogger event a while back and when I was asked if I wanted to review a couple of items, as well as the boucle dress I reviewed nearer the time, I knew I had to have this dress. I’d seen willow china blue patterned dresses all over the high street, but none in a cut I liked and this seemed to tick all the boxes.

Dress: Floral Blue Skater Dress £55 Simply Be

So, I adored the pattern and the fabric, which I knew that I would, because of having a very similar dress with sleeves from Simply Be. I also thought that the gold exposed zip was a really nice touch – I am a sucker for hardware on dresses that are a proper finished job, makes something look alot more luxury and expensive, I think. However, there are a couple of things that I thought ‘oh, if only it was…’.Firstly, its not skater. Skater flares out and will always move away from the body when you spin or sway (yes, I do spins in dresses every single time). This however flared from the top of the hips and then went straight, as you can see, thus making it tulip shaped. For those of you who are sick of skater then this will be a welcome relief, but for me as skater suits me I was a tad disapointed (plus no room for spinning, sad times).

Secondly, I’d urge you to size up. It does fit, however in my normal dress size its a very close call and unless you like skintight dresses you’d be better off heading up the size scale. Also, it was a little on the short side – making it almost more a tunic than a dress (unless again, you’re on board with tight, short dresses; after all most of you probably dont have an aging librarian or granny chic as your daily inspiration in your head (yes, I dress like a prude sometimes)).

However, the back cut-out design is stunning, and as its a fairly thick cotton this dress could probably see you into early Autumn if you pop a cardigan on. (yes, I dress and talk like your nana, but hey, nanas are cool.)

As always, Simply Be have come up trumps again. In fact, methinks they are slowly piece by piece taking over my wardrobe. Keep smashing it out of the park, you gorgeous guys and gals over at Simply Be HQ!