Mer-made with love

There's something bedazzling about magical creatures that makes them the objects of our desire. Perhaps it's precisely due to the mystery behind their stories and whereabouts, or because of the legendary background and symbolisms that they carry, that dragons, unicorns, mermaids, monsters and other mythical beings are able to captivate us in such a romantic way. I think the fact that we're not able to see or interact with them is why we try to recreate these enchanted beasts through art, literature, music and even fashion.

In my case, I've always felt specially attracted to dragons and mermaids. Their mystique, beauty and delicacy blend almost perfectly with a strong presence, spirit of adventure and daring attitude. Particularly during these past years the "mermaid trend" has become evident in fashion through several different elements: pastel color combinations, the inclusion of seashells, corals and pearls in accessories and clothing, colorfully dyed hair, mixing and layering different shades of green and blue,  and the so-called mermaid-inspired makeup. We can also experience the love for mermaid styles of thousands of Instagram users through the popular hashtag #MermaidMonday.

And what better way to incarnate a walking-on-land-mermaid than wearing a mermaid-inspired dress? In these pictures I'm wearing a "Molly Mermaid Swing Dress" purchased from the fabulous online novelty clothing store The Oblong Box Shop. I was lucky enough to score this beauty before it vanished from their stock, even though I had to settle for a size M because they had run out of S. It was a tricky fix, so I ended up sharply taking it in on the sides. Still, just like a singing mermaid, the dress captivated my attention entirely and set me in a trance, magically ending up pressing the "buy" button.

This dress is made by Retrolicious, featuring a pleated halter top and a long circle skirt. The hem of the skirt hits quite modestly under the knees (frankly a little longer than I had expected), and the best part is that it has side pockets! The bodice is lined and has a circular neckline that holds it upright both in the back and front, without showing cleavage on the back despite the halter look. It has a long back zipper closure, allowing an easier fit. The garment doesn't have much stretch since it's made of 100% lightweight cotton, printed with the most fabulous mermaid-inspired pattern. This beautiful fabric is the main course of the dress itself. Designed to look like hundreds of small fish scales in about 10 different shades of blue and green, it becomes a perfect sea-worthy statement piece. Also, the alignment and combination of these scales create the effect of movement (especially on the skirt), resembling the waves of the ocean rippling above a playful mermaid's tail.

Needless to say, the dress fits nicely and gives you a pretty silhouette, while staying comfortable and fresh. It's also a perfect match for you if you love to go dancing, after all, it is a swing dress and it comes out magnificently as such. It would only be fair to show the dress' splendor by wearing it without accessorizing too much. That is why I only paired it with simple white peep-toe heels (by Qupid), six color-matching Chinese bead bracelets (which I was super joyful to find out that matched the shades perfectly), and small starfish-like silver earrings. I don't think a necklace is in order because of the delicate pleating on the top. It seems unnecessary to interrupt such a fine and symmetrical design just for the sake of including jewelry on the outfit.

I can't imagine not having this dress in my closet after wearing it and falling in love with it, in addition to getting lots of amazing compliments on it. I confess I'm completely entranced by the fabric, and feel very fortunate to have purchased this garment before it was discontinued by Retrolicious. If you like it, you might be able to find it at Amazon and Ebay from resellers.

It would be fairly interesting to see a similar dress with a dragon scales pattern, printed in a blend of fiery red, orange, yellow and gold shades.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more posts! 

Tropical Hawai'ian sarong dress: A sewing challenge made from scratch

It's been several years since I've become a super Hawai'ian addict. I'm not certain about where my deep love for Hawai'i and everything related to it comes from, but it has shaped my taste and driven an important part of my style toward tropical themes. I even decorated my room, celebrated my last birthday, themed our wedding and planned on setting part of our new home with a Hawai'ian design.

Following this trend, it's natural that I feel quite attracted to tropical patterns (especially on fabrics because of my seamstress instincts). That is why as soon as I spotted this light blue and pink hibiscus fabric, I knew it would be perfect for a new sewing project. It wasn't that hard to imagine what kind of garment could work nicely with it: I pictured a classical sarong dress almost immediately.

Since I didn't own a sarong dress it would be a great addition to my closet. The problem was that I couldn't find any sarongs or similar dresses among my pattern stash. After taking an online tour through some of my favorite but few shops that sell sarong dresses, I realized that most frocks featured faux wrap-around skirts. I really wanted a real wrap-around model, so I finally decided to take a leap of faith and create my very own pattern from scratch.

Drafting a pattern off the top of one's head is quite a challenging task, especially if you have no guidelines to help you do it. With a little imagination, calculating, a somewhat bold combination of two different bodice patterns, and a blend of hope and luck, I traced out a complete sarong dress pattern tailored to my measurements. After analyzing it for a while checking for imperfections, I crossed myself, began cutting out the pieces from the fabric and hoped for the best. There could be no room for big mistakes, since I always tend to buy only the necessary amount of fabric in order to reduce costs.

When all the pieces were cut, I proceeded to do everything the way most of us sew our garments. First I matched the edges and pinned them down, and then I basted everything in place. This was a specially tense moment because it became the first time I tried on the dress. To my very good luck I only had to perform some alterations to size it down and make it fit more snug. Then I sewed all the way until the dress was finished.

In the pictures you can see me wearing the completed dress, paired with a pink flower hair comb,  a white puka shell necklace, a pink Chinese parasol (which I got from the China pavilion at Epcot), and black sandal wedges (I forgot to pack more theme-appropriate shoes). The dress is made from lightweight printed cotton, with a light blue background covered in pale pink hibiscus and palm leaves. As I mentioned before, the garment is fully wrap-around, featuring a small side buttonhole that allows the inner belt to tighten the fit, wrap the open dress, and come forward to make a nice frontal bow with the other end of the belt. The bodice is made with two overlapping panels connected by a halter strap, also forming a sweetheart neckline. You can appreciate some subtle pleats in top half of the skirt, neatly draped forming a curve over the other half.

I have to say that the most challenging part was creating the pleats of the skirt without making it look bulky, as well as making sure that the wrap-belt was tight and strong enough to hold the whole dress in place. It is definitely one of the most daring sewing projects I've ever pursued, but after taking the risks I was extremely happy with the final results. I think I'll be making a couple other sarong dresses when I find the right tropical fabrics, which of course I shall be sharing in a future blog post.

Thank you for reading and keep a look out for more articles in the near future! 

Disneybound summary: June & May

I'd been wanting to join the Disneybounder community of the world since some time now. So, I've recently started to prepare and post on our Instagram my very own Disneybounds with regularity, and my goal is to keep that same rhythm. For those of you that the term "Disneybound" doesn't ring any bells, it all goes back to the year 2011, when blogger Leslie Kay began posting Disney-inspired outfits in a Tumblr account. In her own words, Disneybound is "a way of showing your love and appreciation of Disney through fashion". 

This idea has since become a trend and thousands of Disney fans have joined in the fun, sporting creative outfits resembling their favorite Disney characters and harvesting a broad community of followers. Disneybounders should guide themselves by their chosen character's color palette and style, but may tweak their look following special holidays (like Halloween, Christmas, Dapper Day, etc) or add in particular themes to achieve festival looks, dapper fashions, summer styles, and others.

Disneybounding is a great idea for those who love Disney but don't feel comfortable or simply dislike wearing costumes and cosplaying characters. The good thing about Disneybounding is that you can be as subtle as you like or as obvious as you can, without hitting the road to costuming. From your shoes to your head, it's your job to choose what clothes to wear and which accessories to add that suit your Disney style. The picture below features all my Disneybounds from the past two months. Can you name them all? (The answers are hidden in the tags by the end of the post).

The most natural Disneybounds that came to me were Snow White and Esmeralda; I didn't even have to put much thought into their outfits, as I had mentally imagined them a while back. In fact, I even once dressed up unintentionally like Snow White and got quoted for it. Ariel was also easy because I'd recently purchased the green tie dye dress and thought it reminded me so much about the Little Mermaid. I struggled a little bit finding the right fit with the cardigan, but managed to make it work. Moana, Boo and Zeus were very fun to put together because I had the perfect meant-to-be accessories for each of the outfits, and it seemed like all the clothes were waiting for me to use them for Disneybounds. Finally, Pegasus and Marie followed a white hue with different contrasting colors and accents. I really love how the spunky blue wig added a bit of craze to Pegasus!

If you want to know where I get the clothes for each outfit, go ahead and skip into my Instagram account. Likes and follows are quite appreciated! I'll be posting a monthly summary of my Disneybounds by the end of each month, but you can still see them regularly through our account.

Follow our Instagram @edu_and_joy and stay tuned for more Disneybound summaries and other cool blog posts!