Lindy Bop is a company whose offerings I have admired for a while but which until recently I had never actually shopped with. I wanted some smart pencil dresses for something I went to recently, and I discovered that Lindy Bop had some which were a really nice design and also fitted well into my budget.

This is one of two dresses I bought: the Vanessa dress in black dogtooth.



Overall I'm pleased - the fit is almost perfect except for the width of the shoulders (it gapes a bit on me, so this is probably not a style suited to petite ladies), and the quality is as you'd expect for the price. This dress is actually lined in a lightweight material throughout the skirt and the back of the bodice, which is a nice extra touch. It has a tendency to ride up slightly when I'm walking, although it's very minimal. The second dress I bought is not lined in the skirt and it rides up a lot more.





Due to the slim fit of this dress I am wearing shapewear (in the form of a What Katie Did girdle) - it's not the tightest dress on the planet but I do find that shapewear helps keep a smooth silhouette underneath more fitted garments even on slim women. Because it's a modern dress I'm not wearing a bullet bra, although I'm wondering if in this case it might improve the fit where it's a little loose around the top.



I'm wearing a UK size 8, which according to the website has a 32" bust and 26" waist. My own actual measurements are somewhere in the region of 34" bust and 25" waist, so I think if you have a small waist you could probably size down as the sizing seems to be quite generous in the bust.

I had a bit of an unintentional break from blogging this month as I was super busy with a couple of trips away from home. My second trip was to visit my brother to watch his final recital at music college and to celebrate his birthday. We spent a nice few days together and took these photos in one of our favourite parts of Leeds by the canal. We almost always go for a walk in the same place when I visit, so it's nice to have some pictures of us together here.








See if you can tell (or remember, if you've been reading my blog for a while) which of us is the older sibling. We kept a few people guessing at the weekend.



Despite the wind, the weather wasn't too bad, although I'm still waiting for the summer to properly arrive. I've started wearing some shoes that I save mostly for the warmer months, like this pair from Deichmann. They were cheap but they're so pretty and span a range of decades really nicely even though they're modern. They're starting to wear out now and I'm wishing I'd bought several pairs! There are never enough good shoes in my life.