Welcome to Desert Island Dresses.We will be asking hipsters, style queens and all Dedicated Followers of Fashion to pick their favourite dresses throughout their lives. We want to know which dresses mean the most to them and why. Our first guest is S from London style blog Disco Nap. I’ve known S for quite a while now and a strong sense of personal style and a genuine love of fashion is something I have associated with her since day one. (All words and pictures by S)
1. Embroidery. I love this dress because my mum made it for me as a nightie when I was a kid and I started wearing it as a dress when I was older. It is too fragile to wear outside the house (the white material is an old bed sheet and it’s very thin) but it’s still lovely to look at.
2.Vintage.Similarly, this vintage dress is in quite a poor condition and needs repairing if I can find a specialist repairers and dry cleaners. I bought this beautiful dress when I was about 15 from the now sadly obsolete vintage shop Steinberg and Tolkien. It cost £50, which was a huge amount money to me at the time (ten weeks’ pocket money!) but it was a brilliant purchase because it made me think of the way I could dress my curvy body to good effect for the first time. It got ripped dancing with boys!
3.Secretary. This silk dress was brought back for my mum by my grandfather from Hong Kong in the 1960s. It’s in perfect condition and I’ve worn it to soirees in the past few years after finally deciding it needed to stop being cherished and start being used – it’s sturdy and it can handle it. I added the belt so it wouldn’t look too much like a nightie.
4.Nautical. I like the way this dress looks on the hanger more than how it looks on me but it is one of my favourite dresses because when I last wore it my boyfriend told me he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
5.Gold. I’ve always been a bit of a magpie and when I saw this dress I said “that needs to be mine”. My boyfriend bought it for me after trawling every branch of Miss Selfridge (for it is from there) from Wimbledon to Oxford Street. I really appreciated the effort and I love wearing it – I feel like Tina Turner. It’s also possible to put a jumper on over the top and carry the sequins around in a more subtle way.
3/4. Kimono. I was so excited when I got this dress. I bought it for a wedding after much agonising over the price (it’s Paul & Joe) and I thought it was so beautiful, which it is. Sadly, some dresses just carry a disappointing feeling with them. I ended up wearing the nautical dress (number 4) to the wedding instead because several people told me they didn’t like it and that it wasn’t appropriate for a wedding. Stupid church with its rules! I still love this dress but I had promised myself I would wear it all the time to justify the cost and yet every time I take it out I think of the negative feedback. Hopefully time will heal its traumatic past.
Sparkling Whine 