Once Upon a Dress

Faux Fur

Old man winter is now truly upon us - our first winter snowstorm has arrived. Time to break out the (faux) fur!!!

 

Purple ruffle velvet blazer! Need I say more?

Orange is the new pink!

Outside, old man winter has arrived! So what better time to think back to warmer days, and to my new favorite color: ORANGE!

Orange is a wonderful color. It is cheerful, happy and brightens up the day. It makes everyone happy, including the wearer! And a nice alternative to pink. Okay, we still did a little bit of pink here(shoes).  :-)

 

 

Crewcuts (J Crew) did some great oranges this summer and in general, has beautiful colors. I monitor their website like a hawk once their sale starts. Leggings are from Children's Place, I love that place for solids and basics.

Cozy Knitted Pink

oh dear, my blog! Perhaps the holiday season was not the best time to start a blog (and blogging in general!), but then again, it's a great time to take photos. But I am on it now, and from now on will post often even if it means just sharing a photo with short caption.

Here is pretty in pink day. This sweater is from the Gap, so adorable. I love the lady-like high neck collar, and Charlotte loved how soft and cozy it was.

Favorite sweater

It's hard to really know what my daughter's true "favorites" are when they seem to change by the day, if not the hour. For instance, one day, pink is her favorite color, the next day it's purple, and the next, green. Well, okay, she does seem to ask for pink a lot more than the others. But, you get my point, and know what I mean - especially if you've got a child anywhere under the age of say, 18!

That said, she does have a favorite sweater. She likes that it buttons up, and does not have to go over her head. She likes the thick, soft plush pile that keeps her warm, but does not itch. She likes that it matches almost everything! Hmm, maybe these are all the things that I like about it! Can I get one in my size?

I also like the fact that this is now the 2nd season she is wearing this sweater. I'm all for getting as much mileage as possible out of any one article of clothing. This sweater was a bit more expensive than I like to spend on one piece (I think it was $49, and one of the few times I have spent full retail), but it has proven to be worth every penny (made by Pottery Barn Kids – which unfortunately has since discontinued their clothing line).

In the second year of wear, it still looks brand new out of the box. It hasn’t faded in the slightest, and unlike most “plush” sweaters, this one has not pilled in the slightest. The fabric (80% polyester 20% rayon) stretches a bit, and I think she’ll be able to use it well into the spring of next year. It’s a miracle sweater!

Here is my daughter last year, when she was 2 ½ years old. The sweater, sized 36 months, was a little roomy at the time, but was very cuddly and doubled as a light jacket. I love the slightly “purply” undertone to it, which gives the cardigan a bit more depth of color, without looking black, like some navy cardigans do.

 

And here is my daughter this year. The sweater now fits perfectly. Everyone needs a favorite sweater!

My preschooler

For the past 2 years, I did not take enough photos of my daughter, for one reason or another. But no more excuses!

This blog, amongst it’s various purposes, is a personal commitment to myself to take as many photos of my daughter as possible, before she grows up. Because it is so true - everything that everyone says -  they grow up too fast and too soon! The precious 1 year old in that photo from my previous post, is now 3 years old!

 
  
  

 

"Once Upon a Dress..."

I am a bit obsessed with dressing my 3 year old daughter.

I never knew (or even noticed/cared) how beautiful and wonderous childrens’ clothing could be until I became pregnant with a girl. Then one day, as I was heaving towards the 9th month in a big mass of belly and fatigue, UPS came calling and brought me  a package, a present from one of my mother’s friends. I proceeded to open the unassuming brown box that it came in and navigated my way, rather laboriously, through the endless layers of packing material, wrapping paper and box-within-the-box. I finally reached the final layer, a flawlessly execution of folded white tissue, le denouement, or so it seemed, given its creaseless perfection. I pulled it back with the anticipatory reverance one always reserves for this last moment, and yet was still unprepared for what I found underneath. I made a short gasp for air, for I was breathless. It was, a Dress.

It was not just any dress. It was a little girl’s dress, in all the storybook manner I had ever imagined a girl's dress would be, which perhaps I did not actually stop to imagine, as an adult. Until now. As such, the dress had neither the perfunctory gaggle of pastels and frills reserved for "baby gifts", nor, to my secret relief, the gender reduction of neutral colors and unisex themes  one found in ... well, unisex baby clothing and "organic" clothing. It was a girl’s dress, simple and pure. A wonderous evocation of nursery rhymes, charming grace, Heidi and childhood innocence. And as such, the most exquisite little dress I had ever seen. A cotton red gingham dress with a scalloped hem, with a matching embroidered cardigan. It could not have been more perfect that the embroidery was of a little girl wearing … well, of course, a dress.

And in that simple cotton dress it finally occurred to me that, wow, I was going to have a GIRL. The dress jolted within me that beautiful, precious and sublime knowledge, which had thus far been the imagining of an embryo, and eventually, (and affectionately) a “bean”. Now, she was indeed, a girl … something I had somewhat felt a bit apologetic in yearning for, particularly amidst the hype and hoopla for "mod" and equal-opportunity baby products such as Skip Hop, Bugaboo and BabyBjorn. Instead, here was a dress. Not a onesie. Not even a skirt. A dress. For my girl.

My daughter was born in the summer of 2006. All of the blessings in my life heretofore paled in comparison to that moment. My life was instantly changed, altered, transported to the sweet and sublime foreverafter. I became a Mother to a Girl.

Amidst all the life-altering, earth-shattering and indescribable joys, challenges, love and work that followed in the days, weeks and months to come, I kept coming back to this one small thing that brought me a most mundane-yet-not-mundane and trivial-yet-not-trivial pleasure and constant in my otherwise transported and upheaval’d world. A little dress… though still too big for my newborn to wear, as it was size 18 months. I placed the dress neatly on a hanger, and hung it from the pull of my daughter’s dresser drawer where I could see it from the rocking chair where I nursed. I gazed at it as if it were an object of art on the wall of a museum, admiring it, dreaming upon it, referring back it, as the object of a certain revery whilst nursing my beautiful gazing-at-me and growing-before-my-eyes child - my ongoing and primary activity in the first year of my daughter’s life.

Finally, the day (and occasion) arrived when she was old enough to wear the dress. The moment I had been waiting for, for 18 months. (well, 12 months, since European sizes run small, thank goodness!) I debuted my daughter’s dress (and my daughter!), to my family-at-large, at my cousin’s summer wedding.

From that day, my obsession was sealed. I was absolutely taken with the experience of dressing my daughter so beautifully, which I resolve to now do everyday, and not just for a special occasion for which I would have to wait 12 months.

I have since dedicated perhaps an unnatural (yet immensely satisfying) amount of time to the matter of dressing my daughter. But I have done so without having the means to purchase a Jacadi dress for everyday of the week. Indeed, this is perhaps why this endeavor has consumed so much of my time – because I have spent so much time searching in ordinary retail stores for clothing pieces that would look beautiful and unique, if creatively mix’d and match’d with other similarly “ordinary” pieces (with the occasional Jacadi-esque piece thrown in for good measure … purchased on sale of course!)

And so the story of the Dress has become the story of Dressing Up My Daughter, everyday. My blog is, as such, a picture book of sorts, filled with photos of outfits inspired by an erstwhile, simpler, more wonder-filled world - a world not yet intruded upon by Hanna Montanas, Britney Spears and Barbies. These are the storybook moments I will pull out of my daughter’s closet --- and perhaps, out of my nostalgic yearning of innocence --- one dress(ing) at a time.

And so I begin.

“Once upon a dress …”