Wear a Vera (especially if it's thrifted)

 The funniest thrifting thing happened last week.

We dropped in to the Salvation Army thrift store, which isn't one of our regular stops but we were in the neighbourhood. I found this teal Miik Vera dress, which is still sold on their website (it's on sale right now too).

If you're not from Canada, don't follow sustainable brands, or otherwise don't recognize Miik, just say that I was impressed, surprised, and pleased, although puzzled as to why anyone would donate it. Maybe they didn't like the colour, maybe it didn't fit.

The funny part is that my other Miik dress (a purple Aileen style) came from that same Salvation Army store, two years ago.

The Vera dress is bamboo rayon (a standard fabric for Miik), but in a lighter weight than the Aileen dress. That could be both good and bad:  the heavier fabric drapes better, and you'd think it would last a bit better too. But the Vera is still well made: you can tell  by the details like the extra layer of fabric inside the bodice. It's meant to be a V-neck, with a front pleat; but it's not hard to wear it turned around for a higher neckline. It's long enough for a dress, but  it also works over leggings; and (if you look in the photographs) you can wear it as a top if you belt it up or tuck it into a skirt.

So: ways I'm thinking about wearing my second second-hand Miik dress:

Dressed down with black jeans and a denim jacket

With leggings

Dressed up with a long cardigan (this would work with leggings)

Under a pullover (ditto)

With my "festive cardigan"

With a pleated skirt

With a zippered jacket

With the jacket and the skirt

If you were in an absolute emergency (like you lost your suitcase), you could even wear the dress as a nightshirt, because it's very comfortable.

But I'm not planning on that just yet. I can think of enough other ways to wear a Vera.

Disclosure and transparency: This is an unsolicited review, and I'm not being compensated by Miik for posting about their product.

Justine on justice

How green is green? (Product Review of Duffield Design)

Treehouse readers know a couple of things about me and my clothes-buying habits. First, I'm usually a thrifter, although I have gone out of my way, once or twice, to buy new dresses from Canadian makers promoting sustainability and made-right-here. But not often. Even my favourite purple dress from Miik was an accidental find at the Salvation Army.

The other thing you might remember is that I've been looking for a decent solid-coloured t-shirt-style dress for a very long time. One problem has been that they tend to be designed without much shape, and I would rather not spend a hundred-dollars-plus on a potato sack, no matter how low its carbon footprint. And the cheaper ones either don't last well, or haven't been popular, at least if you go by the low numbers that turn up at the thrift store. I've been searching almost weekly for over a year, and the closest I came was this long black dress. And that turned out to be, well, too black. I prefer something more cheerful.

Recently I was looking at the Spring/Summer collection on the website of Duffield Design, a small company that uses "green" fabrics and has its sewing done in Canada. I had liked a couple of their pieces last winter, although I didn't need them badly enough to buy anything. Most of their tops and dresses this season were in colours I didn't gravitate to (black, nude), but one dress stood out on the page: the Sphinx Tie Dress in Seafoam. I thought about it for awhile; had a few more tries at finding something comparable secondhand; and finally ordered one.

I'm glad I did. It's a dress I can wear for summer happenings, but it's not too fancy to wear for everyday things. (Maybe not dragging boxes at the thrift store, but other than that.)  The hip sash can be tied in front or behind, and it can even be worn tunic-length.The fabric (Bamboo-Cotton-Spandex Stretch French Terry) and the construction seem to be excellent. The fit, always a wild card when you order online, was fine, not a potato sack. (I got a Small.)

The hardest part of trying to post a review has been getting a picture of this quite intensely green dress that doesn't show up looking more teal or turquoise (my photo at the beginning reads a bit too blue). The photo below is the closest I was able to persuade the camera to come.

Think somewhere between the cactus and the handle of the teapot for a better take on "green."

Here's the dress with my "#AOCM2019 scarf":

And with another current favourite scarf:

So if you're thinking green (even if it's black or nude), and want to shop Canadian, check out Duffield Design.

A little grey dress (Review of the Revolve Dress from Encircled)

Website of Encircled (Canada)
The Revolve Dress (Canadian site)
The Revolve Dress (U.S. and International)

Darrin: "I went to a great deal of trouble to find a present that would express exactly how I feel about our marriage..."
Sam: "And you bought me a PRISON GOWN!"
(Bewitched, "I'd Rather Twitch than Fight," 1966)

No, Samantha didn't like her ugly grey bathrobe. Grey carries along all kinds of boring baggage, doesn't it? Almost as much as black, and without the chic. So if I said that I wanted a plain grey dress with long sleeves (and was prepared to spend more on it than Sam's bathrobe and Darrin's new jacket put together), you might think I needed my head read. Why not buy something brighter and prettier? Why not save a lot of money and buy a dress at the thrift store? (I looked many times, but didn't find anything that fit this particular gap.) Even the Encircled website photographs of the Revolve Dress gave me a few misgivings. They seem a bit severe, and none of the photos make the dress look much longer than tunic length (although the model is a lot taller than I am. Well, most people are taller than I am).

Even so, I kept circling back to the Revolve Dress. When the opportunity to order one came a little sooner than I'd planned, I decided to at least try it out; if it looked all wrong, I could return it.

The dress arrived very quickly, in a no-frills mailer pack. But this is no "prison gown." It's made of a soft, very luxe-feeling fabric called micromodal, which is knit and dyed right in Toronto. Worn frontways, the fabric drapes from the shoulders, down the front.

Reversed, you have a boatneck neckline, with the drape in the back. Generally I avoid boatnecks (a case of Post-Traumatic Stripe Disorder from the '80's), but this one works, especially with a necklace adding some vertical.

The skirt, to create three different lengths, has ruching on one side; it's just enough to keep the hemline from being too plain. The deep grey fabric is nice enough for a party, but it can also be toned down and serious. And when the dress is tucked up to form a top or a tunic, it can play dress-down equally well.

Paired with an Encircled Chrysalis Cardi (my review)

The Smoke dress mixes well with my other clothes, and accepts my problematic penchant for mismatched teal greens. You know you've made the right choice on something (clothes or anything else) when, after owning it even briefly, you can see how big a hole there would be without it. The hard-to-match jacket I bought last winter:

my favourite navy-grey-green striped scarf:

the grey pants I found for a dollar at the thrift store:

they each have a new friend.

It can even work as a skirt, if you like to layer.

The colour choices for a Revolve Dress right now are Black, Smoke, and Plum. Sizes run from XS to XL, and there's a measuring chart on the Encircled website. The dress is made to last, but you have to be prepared to give it a bit of care: it can't go in the dryer, and handwashing is also recommended although it can be machine washed.

Moral of the story: nice things may come in no-frills mailer packs, especially if they're from Encircled.

(So what happened to Samantha's ugly bathrobe? You can watch the episode on You-tube and find out.)

This is an unsolicited review of the Encircled Revolve Dress. I received no compensation for writing it. All opinions are my own.