We haven’t had a fashion Friday post around here in awhile and several of you asked about the lace dress I was wearing in my post yesterday on our DIY Wine Rack. Lace is hot right now and you will be seeing a lot of it this fall! So where did I get the dress? Well, let’s just declare this week, “Kathleen from Grosgrain is Awesome” week, shall we? In addition to being a talented crafter, Kathleen is best known for her fashion/dress designs and mad seamstress skills. She has made TONS of dresses and sweater refashions over the years and was even chosen as an honorary designer for a Shabby Apple dress. When she offered (okay I might have asked) to make me a dress, I was ecstatic! I got busy pinning some dress ideas that I liked and this one below caught both our attention. It is a dress by Zara released in 2011 and is the perfect amount of hippie-vintage-chic.
Source: chicisimo.com via Beth on Pinterest
And here is Kathleen’s interpretation of the dress! Granted it might look better on a six-foot, 20 year old, French model but this (almost) 38 year old, 5’5″ American girl will have to do for now.
It was so much fun to pretend to be a model for a day. And kind of weird. Kathleen models her clothing creations, or “frocks” as she calls them, all the time and looks great and natural doing so. I kept asking her, “What do I do? Do I smile? Do I look at the camera? Do I look away? Where do I put my hands?” I felt like a total dork.
Kathleen’s man took some of these photos with my camera and we used a collapsible light disc for many of them. I am so buying a light disc! They aren’t expensive on Amazon and make such a difference in your ability to capture light. I can’t wait to try one out on my interior shots. So yes, I look a little freaky in the photo below, but I loved the contrast of the lace against the inside of the barn.
Kathleen did an awesome job of recreating the dress I wanted. I paired it with some knee-high Elle leather boots and a leather belt from Kohls.
The dress ended up being a little short on me, so in the fall I will wear it with some skinny jeans or leggings.
This is my woodland fairy picture. Do I look a bit scared here? I am. I’m waiting for a huge spider to come up from that dark hole behind me and attack!
The picture below was edited in Lightroom by Donna from Funky Junk :). I had posted it on my personal facebook page and she grabbed hold of it and did some Lightroom voodoo which made me look about ten times better than I really do. That’s what good friends are for, right?
I think all lace dresses look better when paired with weathered wood!
Thanks for amusing me today as I pretend to be a model. This pic below was taken by Kathleen with my camera (Nikon D5100) using my 50mm lens and the light disc. It didn’t really need much editing. The light disc smooths out your lines and wrinkles and makes you look ten years younger. I think someone needs to walk around shining one on all of us all the time!
For more fantastic Grosgrain “frocks” be sure to hop on over and visit Kathleen! Thank you dear friend for making me such a beautiful gift!!
Thanks Beth……no harm intended.
That was sweeeet of you to put that through. Maybe that dress ought to be a giveaway on your blog, don’t you think?:-)
xx
You look fabulous. The dress is darn amazing too. I love lace, and I think the women who wears it are equally uh-mazing!
Love.
xx
Killer Bell Sleeve Lace Dress
Thank you VintageandTall! I don’t allow promotional links in comments but that dress is so cute I’ll let it slide this once :). Thanks for stopping by.
Giant spiders make me think of Lord of the Rings 😉 You are so pretty – your hair looks amazing and I love that dress!
You look gorgeous, and wear that dress well!! I’m sure your hubs loved it, too! I know what you mean about awkward…I do outfit posts a few times a month and I feel like such a GOOB!!!!! I guess models really do have a talent! 😉
Thanks Cassie! And yes, there is a definite skill required to modeling that I learned I don’t possess :). I felt so self-conscious and silly!
Beth, I love your dress and you look beautiful! Great photos!
Thank you so much Susan! (And thanks for the awesome post on scrapers. I think you started a truncated feed revolution with it 🙂 ).
You look gorgeous, Beth. Such a beautiful dress.
You look fantastic! 🙂
Kathleen has mad-awesome skills and you my dear are Beautiful, simply beautiful.
LOL!! You are a riot! You are gorgeous no matter if editing or no editing is involved! You totally rocked the shoot. 🙂
Donna
You look like a french model! Just gorgeous. The dress is beautiful too! Perfect pairing!
Gorgeous, Beth! Love the last one with you laying on the blanket. Headed over to check out the lightdisc 🙂
What fun! Love the photos and the dress looks stunning.
Thank you!
Beth, you look positively Pre-Raphaelite in that first barn picture! You are so lovely, I knew your eyes were blue, but I didn’t know they were the bluest on the planet! The dress is gorgeous, Kathleen did a beautiful job with it. It looks amazing on you.
Aw, thanks Kimberly :). Kathleen is a fabulous seamstress and photographer.
Kathleen did an amazing job on this dress. It is stunning and you look beautiful! You look like a professional model, Beth.
You look so beautiful and that dress is amazing! Is a light disc the same thing as a reflector? I have to check this out!
Hi Kathryn, I don’t know what the technical term is for it. It’s just a foldable disc that reflects lights so perhaps it’s called a reflector. Loved it though and totally need to purchase one!
You LOOK AH-MAHZ-ING! I loved photoshooting with you. You definitely have model in you;) In some of the photos you literally look angelic. Your hair was like something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. Truly lovely. So glad we got to do this.
It was a lot of fun friend! And you made my day. I’m a TOTAL Lord of the Rings nerd :).
Gorgeous!! That dress is fantastic and you are beautiful; what a fun photo shoot! I’m thinking I need one of those light discs; I’ll get one of my boys to lug it around and angle it just right…wherever I go… 🙂
Thank you and great idea. I wonder if my boys would mind light-discing me while we’re out and about *wink*.
Thanks so much for your response! that dress is amazing and you wore it so well, I can see you doing so much with it like you said by wearing tights, leggings, etc….love, love, love it! and I actually like her version better than the original dress, she seriously has some mad skills! I’m going to check her blog out now:)