I did not plan to be one of those people who cries over old clothes, but apparently I am. On Saturday morning I found myself getting a little teary in a Capitol Hill Goodwill while clutching this Laura Ashley dress in my arms. It’s THE PERFECT dress.
Navy with white daisies and a pie- crust collar, probably from 1983 or 84. The lady next to me asked if I was OK, and I explained that my mum had basically this dress when she was little too. She must’ve thought I was having some sort of mental breakdown.
Which….spoiler alert: maybe I was? But a good kind of breakdown.
This has been bothering me ever since though.
Why are these prairie-esque dresses popping up everywhere I look?
Not just at thrift stores – I’m talking about on actual PEOPLE walking around Seattle who look adorable and normal, not like they’re cosplay-ing for a Renaissance festival. Something is happening, folks.
Something wonderful. And I want to know what it is. Obviously I bought the dress.
Paid sixty dollars for it! Which isn’t a lot for vintage but STILL. I felt like I was getting away with murder until I got home and tried it on and realised that it needs to be taken in about fifty dollars worth of alterations to actually fit.
My bank account is weak, but I knew when it asked me if I loved it. Honestly, what’s so interesting to me about these aggressively feminine, hyper-romantic dresses is how RIGHT they feel right now. Look around.
The world is dumpster-fire-y. Climate change is making us all panic. Our political system is literally crumbling.
Instagram makes everyone hate their life. And what are we doing about it? Wrapping ourselves up in old sacks of cotton and pretending we belong in a painting.
Oh wait. That’s what we’re doing. And I’m totally here for it.
Whenever that happened. Look, I get it. There’s something nurturing about those big, billowy shapes.
I was listening to a panel about sustainable fashion last month (which believe me, I did not choose how I spent my Saturday but boy was it interesting) and THREE of the panelists talked about wanting some kind of “cocooning” or “protective dressing” going on these days. We want to wrap ourselves up and not deal with anything. HOWEVER: these are not cute if you wear them exactly as they would’ve been worn in 19-whenever.
Trust me, I learned that lesson MANY times breaking out the white tights and ballet shoes and THEN trying to act like I don’t notice you looking at my outfit. Old lady. My friend Jessica beat me to the punch on figuring out how to make this trend work.
She found this AMAZING vintage dress (? blouse? It’s too big to be a blouse but it’s not really a dress either) in black with tiny pink roses on it and she wears it ALL THE TIME with Doc Martens and a leather jacket. The first time I saw her in it I was like holy crap your whole outfit looks like it should hate each other but it doesn’t at all it actually really works.
Because, jacket. More on that in a sec but that leather jacket is what takes Jessica’s whole outfit out of closet-and-into-a-time-machine and into fashion-forward realm. I basically stole Jessica’s vibe when I wore my Laura Ashley dress last weekend.
I played around with it for DAYS trying to figure out how to accessorize. Which brings me to my next point. Accessories are huge with this trend.
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Start with heavy shoes – prairie dresses look AMAZING with Air Force 1s. Jewellery should either be minimal or really heavy – thin chains get lost under that high neckline. Statement earrings are PERFECT with these shapes, but delicate jewellery will look dated.
Please, PLEASE do not try this trend with ringlets though. I actually saw this older woman at Pike Place Market WITH THE FULL LOOK. Vintage dress, 1980s hair and makeup.
It was TOUGH to look at. If you’re going to do this, please keep your hair simple, mmkay? Last weekend I spotted this lady at a coffee shop in Fremont who was rockin’ the trend perfectly.
High-neck floral top (thrifted, of course – literally the best $8 I’ve ever spent) tucked into black leather trousers with pointy boots. Like her, it didn’t feel TRY HARD if that makes sense. She told me that it’s all about changing up one thing.
Her shirt had obviously been altered to be above the ankle instead of full-length like it would’ve been in the 70s or 80s. I told her that ONEthing needed updating to make a vintage piece feel current, and she basically said “duh, Girl. That’s my whole shtick.” Also, FULL DISCLOSURE: authentic Laura Ashley styles are starting to get seriously pricey, tbh.
There’s this lady at the Fremont Sunday Market who tried to sell me a blouse that had WHITE stains on it for TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY dollars. Yes, you read that correctly. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY dollars.
I love vintage as much as the next lady but I am NOT spending my ENTIRE MONTHLY RENT on apossiblybarf-stained blouse. The upside is that vintage-inspired brands are totally picking up on this trend. Last spring & Other Stories did an entire collection of obviously-inspired-by-but-not-copying prairie dresses.
Even Target has been selling plain cotton floral numbers with pie-crust necklines! It’s not the same as the REAL DEAL but hey, it’s a start. I love that the original LA shirts/dresses/skirts were made to last.
Real cotton fabrics that WILL wear forever if you take care of them. Classic, simple cuts that didn’t feel the need to CHANGE WITH THE TIMES LIKE FASHION IMITATES. Fast fashion is such a relatively new thing and I love clothing that was made when something was actually meant to LAST.
Speaking of vintage shirts that will last FOREVER. My mum texted me the other day because she FOUND all of her old prairie dresses in her basement and couldn’t believe that they were “back in style.” And here I thought she was showing them off to me?! Meanwhile my neighbour just loaned her boot-cut denim jeans to her teenage daughter who wore them with one of her old Laura Ashley blouses and a bucket hat.
Vintage is the new vintage, yo. Anyway. Once I finally got over the emotional hurdle of wearing my new dress in public, I figured why not do it BIG.
If I was going to wear this dress in public, I was going to OWN it. I wore it to a birthday party last weekend, and instead of wearing pantyhose and little mary-jane shoes I wore flat leather sandals with my dress.
Gold hoop earrings.
A denim jacket.
The single biggest difference between how I wore my dress and how some lady would have worn the exact same dress in 1983 is denim jacket. I got tons of compliments all night, which was great.
But what really made my day was when the birthday girl’s daughter – probably 17 years old – asked if she could borrow it sometime. Like. We did it, Laura Ashley.
We brought you back. One tiny ripped dress at a time. I got home that night and caught myself in the reflection of a storefront window.
For a second I thought I was looking at my mum, getting ready for who-knows-what with her blue floral duct taped to her hips. Crazy how fashion works sometimes. It’s so forward-thinking and “on trend” but we will FOREVER be referencing back to styles that made us feel something when we were young.
