Swans A Swimming

You might not quite believe your eyes, but yes, this is an outfit post! It feels like forever since I last blogged one, and that's probably because it has been. Well, okay, I'm exaggerating, but it has been a while!

It's never been my intention to make outfit posts a sporadic feature here on my blog; (they were once the main feature), but the truth of it is, my back pain and sciatica have been hitting me hard for months, and I've spent most of 2014 so far living in my pyjamas... bar the handful of times I've been able to leave the house. It's difficult sharing outfits when you don't even have the energy to get dressed! And that makes me feel a little sad.

Now that the days are getting longer, the weather's getting better, and the light brighter, I feel less inclined to hibernate, and more encouraged to dress, so hopefully I'll be able to take outfit photos a little more often and work on getting up and about a little bit more. Hopefully. For now at least, I have this one to share with you which is one more than yesterday, so let's go from here!

I'm wearing my brand new swan-print dress from Dorothy Perkins which I treated myself to last week. It's the first piece of clothing I've bought in months! (I know, I'm shocked, too!) I'd been admiring it from afar for ages, so when I saw it was on promotion last week, I couldn't resist. It was 30% off, and I also found a discount code with free delivery which sliced the price down even further. I love it when that happens!

It arrived a few days ago and I wasn't disappointed. I have a couple of other Dorothy Perkins dresses in the exact same style, so I knew it would be another winner.

It's a real beauty of a dress with a white swan print on a cobalt blue background, which is a welcome addition to my wardrobe zoo! Until now, I didn't have a swan print in my ever-growing collection of weird and wonderful prints, so I'm pleased to finally have one. Is it sad that I get excited whenever I can add a new quirky print to my collection?? Probably.

The dress is really comfortable to wear as it's made from the softest viscose, but because Dorothy Perkins dresses are notoriously small fitting, I have to size up at least once with them to be able to breathe; so size up if you can. It's a little loose on top because I don't have a huge chest, but it definitely hasn't got room to accommodate an ample pair of boobs, which seems to be a common issue with DP clothes. Sorry, ladies.

I wore this outfit to pop down to the post office on Wednesday afternoon, and then enjoyed shooting these photos in the garden. The skies were blue, the sun was shining, and if you can believe it, it was 21'C! It was so warm it felt like a summer's day, and I soon found I was a little too hot wearing opaque tights! 

I went for a black and blue theme because I love wearing the two colours together, despite that fashion rule that has always told us to NEVER wear the two colours at once. It's actually one of my favourite colour combos! 

I dressed the frock with my short-sleeved scalloped shrug from Lovedrobe, a pair of blue ballet pumps from New Look, my Russian Doll bag from Accessorize, and a cream rose bracelet from Cath Kidston.

Isn't the swan print lovely? They look like they're swimming on a great big blue lake!

This Russian Doll bag is one of my current favourites to use. I bought it from Accessorize in the January sales, so I'm afraid it's no longer available, but it's sure proved to be a worth while purchase because I've already used it so many times. Here it is sitting in a patch of grape hyacinths.

I didn't realise until I went to edit these photos that the stitching on my old faithful New Look ballet pumps has started to split. I've had them for several years now, and I'm gutted that they're on their way out. I love them!

The rose bracelet  is from Cath Kidston, and looks as pretty as all the daisies in the garden. I wanted to sit and make daisy chains!

Outfit Details

Dress-Dorothy Perkins // Tights-Evans // Shrug-Lovedrobe // Bag-Accessorize // Bracelet- Cath Kidston

I'm really pleased with my new dress and I can see myself getting lots of wear out of it this Spring and Summer. I think next time I'll try wearing it with lots of sunshine yellow! The dress is currently available in sizes 6-22UK at £35 and I recommend snapping one up before they sell out!

I hope you all have a fantastic Easter weekend, if you celebrate it; or a fantastic bank holiday weekend, if you don't! 

Thanks for reading.