Hello there stranger! How goes it with you?
If you've been reading this blog for over a year or even a while, you have probably registered my love of sailor-dresses and sailor items. I remain smitten by them and it all stems from a rather lovely musical called
Meet Me in St Louis. It's a lovely film if you ever get to see the Judy Garland film and the stage show is also lovely, though a little different. When I was 11, I auditioned to play Agnes, the second youngest daughter in a local Amateur Dramatics stage production. At that point, I had never played a main-part with any big lines to learn- I'd been in
Finnian's rainbow with one line: "Round a little yellow seat," and in that, we'd had one costume and we ended up bringing out own dresses to wear for the bit where the town gets rich!
However, when I got that part, ending up being in various scenes throughout the play, I ended up with 6-8 costumes I believe! It was really exciting for this eleven year old, to have real proper nice outfits like in a film- in my dancing shows, our costumes always LOOKED costumey (and I'd probably not chose to wear any of them in real life except for my sister's
The World is a circle costume (oh how I MISS that dress!). The first costume I wore, was a white sailor dress. It really suited me in fact it was perfect for me and everyone including me acknowledged this- in the past, I'd never really particularly thought about anything suiting me or being bothered by clothing. It was after that that I did get interested in clothes. Somewhere, there is a picture of me wearing that sailor dress, looking worried, with a slight wonky eye from the show, but I still loved that show.
Long after the show, I remembered that dress, remembered feeling pretty in it, remembered the enjoyment of being a member of the main cast, being in the principals' dressing room, being included in the grown-ups, though treated still as a child, the joy of being in that team, enjoying that acting. And those costumes. I don't remember all the costumes in detail but I do remember the long, white, pretty cotton nightgown I had to wear for the party-scene (I've always had a penchant for long white cotton items since that time and always wanted a long white night gown) and I remember the dress I wore for the final scene where the family celebrates at the St Louis Purchase exposition: It was a peachy floral dress with a darling little collar, worn with a white frilly hat (sounds remiscent of all the vintage dresses I love nowadays and the hat thing..), all my favourite seem to stem from that time. But most of all, I remember that white sailor dress.
In recent years, when I have acquired sailor-items, it has been in my subconscious, in fact whenever I go onto certain websites, ASOS, Ebay, Etsy, I always searched for sailor-dress.
Therefore, in the summer, when I first saw this Jaeger Boutique dress, I was smitten. Truly smitten. It reminded me so much of that beloved dress, even though it had a slightly different skirt I believe- still it reminded me. I ummed and ahed about it for ages, it was really expensive, even though it was in the sale, more than I'd ever spend on anything. By the time, after months, I still thought of it, it seemed that we were not to be together- anything in size 8 or 10 was sold-out. Finally, after a while, I found at John Lewis.com that there was a size 6 left and hedged my bets.
When it arrived, it fitted, well it even seemed a bit too big, but I was happy. And this Sunday, when I wore it, then, just then, I began to feel like Agnes again.
You'd think I'd style it a bit better (and take those wretched hairbands of my wrist!) but I liked it just as it is.
Coupled with simple sailor ballet-pumps.
and my Alex-Munroe-style Bee necklace, which I'd also wanted for a long time.
To this day, I wish, oh I wish, that I had taken part in more musicals, more plays, more drama. To a certain extent, I have enjoyed some fun opportunities in those musicals and operas I have taken part in, playing Maria in the
Sound of Music, last year, Luciana in
The boys from Syracuse the year before and other odd parts and chorus over the years, always sporadic, but there is something wonderful about treading the boards and I would love to be able to do it better. I don't look the part for a lot of things, and I am just not sure about my voice, it's hard to know what you sound like, I'm not very 'Lovey' and the sort of 'Showbiz' female, but it would be nice to try!
Is there a dress that you own or a style that you love, that emanates from a childhood memory like mine? Do you have any regrets about things you have, or haven't done, or have only done to a certain extent?
