You know when you find the dress of your dreams?

The perfect colour and vintage style and you KNOW you have to have it?

And so you go onto the website to order one and find out they only do it in standard sizing, no plus sizes at all?

Yeah That.

This happened earlier on in the year when I spotted the Voodoo Vixen Nicki dress in Olive green. Stretchy textured velvet like material in the most spectacular colour.

The Nicki dress in Olive

Well, to say I was gutted was an understatement. I was genuinely distraught.

I wanted that dress so badly, all to no avail.

Fast forward several months and I was again at the fabulous Londonedge where were went to have a chat with Nicki on the Voodoo Vixen stand.

Nicki is always so welcoming and does a great job of trying to increase the plus size range on offer and always takes on board our comments and suggestions.

Now, we of course knew that there was to be no plus size launch as such for A/W17, but a quite a few plans in the pipeline for S/S18 so it was worth going and having a catch up with her.

She went on to tell us that the new range will hopefully be around ten lines and not just dresses. Well this got us all very excited.

Eventually it was time to move on, and as I went to leave I mentioned if she could pull some strings and get the Nicki dress made larger pretty please, she would make all my dreams come true. To this she replied…

“Well the blue version does…..Oh and so does the black, although we have named it Molly!”

The Navy Nicki Dress

Well, I immediately discounted the black as I swore I would never wear another plain black dress ever again. But the Navy Blue? That could be a good idea. I found out that the dress would be available in up to a XXL. Now, this is quite a bit smaller than my 4XL, but I was told that it had epic stretch.

For the record, in most of my dresses I need at least a size 24, but mainly a 26. How would I fit in a 16?!?!

I wandered over to have a look at the blue. It was stunning. Identical to the Olive, just bigger. I also noticed they did a Red version, strangely called Olive!

The Olive Dress

I thought that the dress may still be a little small, but it did seem to have a lot of stretch in it.

Nicki told me that she would be happy to gift me one to try it and review it. Well with such a kind offer I was hardly going to refuse!

She told me to drop her a line a week or two after Londonedge was over. I duly dropped her a note and she very generously told me she would send one out immediately.

Within seconds another email came through telling me the Olive was now available in the larger size and would I prefer that colour instead?

Would I? Oh you so know I would!

Now the range of sizes at the moment on the website do vary. Whilst the red dress is currently only up to a L (size 12) the black and Olive are a XL (size 14) the blue a XXL (size 16).

However as I have been told the blue, black and olive are all now XXL I would like to hope the red would eventually come out in that size too. So as you can see, I am reviewing a dress that potentially should fit a size 16!

That colour!

Nicki also enclosed the matching turban. As she said, If I was going to rock it, I might as well really rock it!

Turban Time

Now you can possibly guess how excited I was about this dress arriving. My only concern was that I would still be too big for it.

Of course, I was at work when the package arrived and was taken back to the depot. Grrrrr

I went to collect it the next morning and had to go straight to work. This meant that I had to wait a whole work day before I could get to try it on.

I envisaged wearing it with a large flower corsage and matching clip on the side of the turban. Paired with my original 1940’s fur stole, I thought it would be the most stunning outfit.

So how did I get on?

I had worked a full shift at work, my make-up had slid off my face hours previously and I was shattered. But I was determined to give it a go.

Well it couldn’t have gone any better!

As I said, I didn’t make any special effort on the first attempt. I just wanted to make sure that the dress actually went over my boobs.

Apart from no make-up, I certainly didn’t have the correct undergarments on. But after all, it was just a trial run.

So wearing a bra that whilst super comfy, is a little saggy and a pair of bikini briefs, I was never going to win any awards for sartorial style.

Like a glove

However, try it on I did.

And to my surprise, it fitted!

When I say it fitted, it fit like a glove!!!  The velvet flared over my body like it had been made for me.

Admittedly I have lumps and bumps but I love the dress and the way it makes me feel, like a film noir movie star.

The turban is the icing on the cake and I feel it matches perfectly. In fact all it needs is a sparkly brooch in the centre and I will be all set.

This past weekend I decided that I would do things properly and enlisted the hubby in a marathon photograph taking session in the garden. To be fair, he didn’t even know how to use the camera so it was a bit tricky to start with.

First Test Shot by the Hubby

However, take photos he did. Over 200 of them. And some of them are right little corkers.

My Happy Face!

Full Length

Pensive….

Of course, we made the fatal mistake of letting the pup run around in the garden. He loves a camera…..

Wanted to be in on the action!

In fact he made it his mission to photobomb nearly every photo we tried to take. To be honest though, he is s cracking dog and we did get some super cute ones.

Look at the Handsome Hound!

Once I had taken a few in the matching outfit, I swapped out the headdresses a little. As some of you know, my friend Janey makes hats and fascinators. She started teaching herself as a way to keep busy whilst she is battling cancer. Some of the first things she made, I have loved from day one. On a recent visit she said she was going to get rid of them.

Made by Jane

So of course, they came home with me. After all, I couldn’t bear to see them not treasured and loved. I honestly think they look stunning with the dress; the perfect match, very reminiscent of a bygone era.

My favourite by Jane

I changed some of the photographs to black and white. It is one of my favourite styles and I realised that I never really use them on my blog. I felt that this style really suited it so played around with the colour on a few of them.

I Love Black and White Photographs

A study in Black and White

Now don’t get me wrong. I am fully aware I have a quite a VBO (visible belly outline). Some people may think it looks disgusting, or that someone my size shouldn’t wear something so tight fitting.

Tummy? Yeah… so?

Also this dress really does cling to my considerably large bottom. And I think it looks glorious!

Bit of a shelf!

In the past I would have totally agreed with them. Then I grew up and realised I dress to  please me, and if I love something I will wear it even if it shows off parts of me that others think as flawed and plain wrong.

Not sure what I was gazing at!

This dress fulfills all my hopes and dreams of an outfit. The colour is stunning, the weight of the material means it clings yet flows and it is so soft on the body. I put on the dress and a smile comes to my face. It genuinely makes me feel divine and like I could conquer anything.

Smiling again

And why shouldn’t I conquer those fears and pre-conceived notions of plus size women and what they should or shouldn’t wear.

Sass

In past blogs I have spoken about people who leave me comments or send me messages on IG and Facebook. Some say I am an inspiration, or that I have made them re-look at the way they see themselves and their style. It always feels amazing when a stranger takes the time to say that.

Chin Chin

And you know what?. Whilst I myself struggle to see how I inspire someone else, that is not the point. If they see it, and it helps them in some way, that’s bloody brilliant. If me getting my lumpy bits out, helps them overcome some issue they have with themselves then I will keep on doing for as long as I am able.

Cheers m’dears

Because it is important to show that life is for the living and to enjoy every moment that you are here, pudgy belly or not!

Cocktail Time

Which leads me on to my next item of bravery (or stupidity, I am not sure which)

As part of my 50 things to do before I am 50, I listed “Entering the Miss Twinwood competition” as one of them. I anticipated that I may have a couple of years grace before I did that. However several friends, including the two Londonedge co-conspirators, Boo Brown and Carrie-Ann Dring have nagged me to do it now rather than later!

So, it looks like I might need to find outfits for this and I think this would be just perfect.

You have to enter with a full length photograph and as this make me so happy, I think that would show up in the photograph. I think a call to the amazing Peter Brown at Ticketyboo Photography could be an idea! Especially when he is responsible for this beauty….

Hurray for Hollywood

So…. In conclusion, it is a stunning dress and I can’t thank Nicki enough for sending my dream dress to me.

What do you think to this slight change in style for me?

Oh and before you go, In order to pose for the photographs with the cocktail glass, I asked hubby to put some drink in there, preferably clear….. Here is my photo of when I accidentally sipped the flat Indian tonic water, which I detest with a vengeance!!

Eurgh!!!

Till next time

Txxxx

*****Although the items were gifted to me, the opinions, comments and words in the post are entirely my own*****