transretrogurl

I saw this dress on the Marks and Spencer website and thought ‘I have no idea what kind of look I’ll do with that but I *need* that frock’. Yeah, a little impulse buying, but it looked very cute in a ‘hipster chick’ kind of way; it’s actually a modern dress, mini-length, fully button up, pretty little frilled Peter Pan collar and a gorgeously cute floral pattern.

But I really couldn’t work out, even when thinking about in depth, what kind of look would work. Modern wouldn’t really be a good one as the dress was just a little too short.

And then, for reasons beyond me, I checked my Amazon Prime account the night before the session to find something to watch, and I re-watched Midsommar. Midsommar is a wonderfully odd and horrific movie, very much in the Wicker Man ilk (the 1973 Wicker Man is my second all time favourite film, just because it’s deliciously horrible in a 1970’s English way) and , no spoilers, it has some very interesting village-style fashions in it.

They don’t wear dresses like this one, but they do wear the head-dresses and the floral motif of the frock just made me think of Midsommar – luckily Cindy had a lovely floral headpiece that pretty much exactly matched the Midsommar look, so we did a homage to Midsommar.

Well, actually, we did two distinct looks; even though this is a modern frock it has a very 1970’s flower-child feel, so we combined it with white gogo-boots (from my 1970’s babysitter look a couple of sessions back) and kitschy 1970’s plastic earrings for a fun 1975 ABBA fan look.

Given I am and have been a heavy metal fan since, oh, 1983 or so it always gives me a queer little fun thrill when I adopt the look of something completely different to that; different gender, different musical tastes, the works. And this look was delightfully 1970’s ABBA at its best.

Again, it was a brand new modern dress from Marks and Spencer; I get the feeling it’s aimed at those cynical hipster girls who want to make a fashion statement without making a fashion statement. Good on them; gives a retro-obsessed cross-dresser like myself something very fun to wear.

It was a surprisingly comfortable dress as well, as long as you relax and don’t worry about accidentally showing peeks of white panty (it’s awfully short) and don’t mind spending a lot of time fiddling with the sleeves. They are very voluminous and work both above and just below the elbow, but I couldn’t decide which so was constantly changing the position of them. Not an easy task with the nails I had on; for the session we went with a new style of nail, much more talon like, in a metallic pink colour. You can’t really see from the photos but they were delightful.

Anyway, there will be a slight pause in these Frock Tales as I’m off to do something fun over the next couple of days. I’m going to have a ‘dress retirement party’; there are some frocks I love to pieces and have done on a number of occasions but due to the weight loss and a slight change in direction they hang unused in the closet, so I’m having a session where I can revisit for the last time some of the frocks I’ve loved over the last couple of years before retiring them. It should be a lot of fun, the Banker’s Wife, the 1940’s Hostess, the 1950’s housewife. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up the joy, I’m just waving goodbye to the size 18 and size 20 frocks in one last blowout for them.

Stay beautiful and go watch Wicker Man (1973, not the godawful Nick Cage remake) and Midsommar. They will creep you out in a fun way, I promise.