Wednesday 23 June 2010

Sales wish list entry number 5 - the Olivia Rubin dress

A good dress is a truly wonderful thing. I have a lot of dresses, but only around three them really classify as a good dress. A good dress is a rare jewel in the wardrobe - something you can put on with or without any other covering and know you look good without even looking in the mirror.
My Acne sack is one of those dresses. Short, black, low backed, sleeveless with small shoulder pads and cleverly cut to be super flattering, this dress and some red lipstick got me eyed up by Orlando Bloom. It's a bit dressy for day though. For that I have my mother's old 80's Joseph dress, which looks like it's actually from the 50's but is much less restrictive and more comfortable than an original 50's dress would be. I also have a nude pleated dress from H&M that fits the bill. All of these look good with heels and flats, cardigans and jackets, tights and bare legs, making them pretty much invaluable as far as I'm concerned.

Some designers know how to do good dresses, and some just think they know. Olivia Rubin actually does know, and she is really, really nice to boot.
You'll know her dresses if you read the weekly glossy magazines here in the UK, as they're often worn by those in the limelight who want to walk the line between accesible feminity and scary fashion.
But aside from generating a nice bit of publicity, most of those celebritys are doing those dresses a bit of a disservice really. They might wear them once or twice before relegating them to the back of the pile, but these are not dresses for relegation. They should be worn as often as physcially possible.

Rubin has marked down her current collection by 40% on her website, and the prices are actually quite reasonable for anyone who has been paid in the not too distant past (ie not me)...
I've been coveting the Matisse (above), reduced to £179.90 from £257, since I first saw it all those months ago now, so on to the wish list it goes.

Although, like the Acne, it's a bit too fancy for every day wear, to me it looks like the kind of dress you could wear for a dinner party, party party, cocktail party or for looking like a glamorous wastrel knocking back tequila with beer chasers with EDF at a certain soho bar... basically it's a good times good dress. As long as your good times don't involve red wine because that could be a disaster. Lots of black smudgy eye liner is the only other bit of styling that would be essential with the Matisse - otherwise hair up or down, heels or flats, fur coat or cagoul, it doesn't really matter. I think it'd even look ok with wellies.
Next month Rubin launches a new diffusion range of jersey t-shirts, oli rubi, including a loose fitting t with her trademark brickprint about which I am irrationally excited in a way that would disturb most of my family and friends.

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