When Reality Ruins Expectation's Day

Oh my friends, this has just GOT to be my blog equivalent of a Disaster Movie.  My Titanic.  Or that volcano movie, can't remember what it's called ... Volcano! maybe?

Whatever.  It's all gone wrong in the space of an hour or two.  About the same length of time as a movie ... spooky that, huh?  Coincidence or am I really living in a First World Disaster Reality right now?

Or, to put it in a less melodramatic way, I'm not having a good day.

I had been waiting for a warm, sunny day with little wind in order to show you the Madeleine beach dress out in the open air.  On a beach, perhaps. 

Yes, you heard right, Madeleine calls this type of dress a beach dress.  I call it a "posh going out for a summer supper" dress

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 I waited and waited and the day of optimum outdoor bloggy conditions just hasn't arrived and according to the forecast, it won't be arriving for a few days.  So I got fidgety.

Fidgety because in my mind I had great plans for this dress and wanted to see what this baby could do in IRL.  I'd listed a whole string of ways I could wear this little bluey lavender piece of soft jersey.

Au naturel, with a tan - that certainly hasn't happened.

Grey shoes and cardi

Taupe cardi and shoes

With a tied striped shirt and espadrilles - and I don't even have any!

Black wedges, cardi and elastic belt

Black wedges and biker jacket

I think you're getting the picture.  I could see lots of ways to style this simple cutie.  And styling it needs this time of year when pasty skin and goosebumps just don't do it justice.

So I needed some styling (covering up) and had high hopes.

 

But when I put it on, it felt instantly, well, meh.

So grumpy old me starts blurting out the negative stuff ...

That's it, I don't like it.  It just doesn't work for me.  It's going back. 

Hey, it looks OK.  Try it at least with one cardi.  That one at the top of the pile.

(That's The Photographer chivvying me along.)

My response?  Still meh.

So that's as far as I went with my "styling" of this little beach dress.

"I'll just have to see what I can do with this bunch of pics" I huffed and puffed.

Sadly my bad day didn't stop there.  The only half decent editing software I can easily use started playing silly-buzzards.  I spent about an hour getting out these few low-res pics.

I tried another edit method.  It doesn't crop well, so I don't usually use it.  I played around with the colour enhancer to try distract the eye from the bad editing.

I lost my legs during this episode.

I became quite grumpy.  (You are guessing right, that is an understatement).

It's a shame as I was giving you spoilers about the dress.  

And I was personally triumphing over it, as I had only by chance discovered the Madeleine is shipping to the Channel Islands again.  So this beach dress was me dipping my toe back in Madeleine/s stylish water again.

So I turn to you, my fashionista readers, can you help me?

Can you see how this dress could be styled, other than au naturel and with a long-awaited tan?

If I am to wear this before said tan appears, I need to wear it with a cardi or a jacket or ... what?  Can you tell me?

  Can you be the one in the disaster movie who comes up with a mind-blowing solution that plugs the whole in the ship? 

The hero who finds a way to divert the lava away from the hospital? 

The one who I saves mankind, the planet, and hey, whilst we're on a roll, the universe? 

If that all sounds like too big an ask, well I'd be happy if you just came up with some styling solutions which gets me to keep the dress and puts a smile back on my face.  Oh and if you can recommend a free or cheap photo editing package, then that would be good too.

Thank you.

A la perchoine.