Shopping Time At Quiz

Well it just goes to show how a sudden weather change can totally stop plans now doesn't it.

In my case, the plans that I had involved me being able to wear, and obviously pose a little bit, in a few of the lovely new frocks I have stacking up at the moment.

Nope - one can not really frolic around a park in a summer dress and sandles in the middle of a storm...

...well, I guess I could have done, but I reckon it wouldn't get such a positive reaction or be all that enjoyable really...

...the pictures might have been funny though...

But anyway, as you may have read on my blog here, I was lucky enough to win a £100 Quiz Clothing voucher from the fantastic Blog Yorkshire raffle which I just couldn't wait to use.

So, one afternoon, straight from work, I took a rare opportunity at a free few hours and drove straight over to The White Rose Shopping Centre and hunted down my local Quiz store.

I think I must have tried on every single dress I could find in the store - they were lovely, but I found the majority of the styles that were "in" were the body-con figure-huggers...not too good with my less than perfect tummy, but I was adamant to find something nice.

So adamant that I ended up spending £87 of my winnings and walked away with three dresses and a pair of sandals.

Not bad eh!

Rather than keep them hung up in my bedroom any longer waiting for a rare sunny day to appear, I thought I'd show you what I picked up and then post some OOTD's as and when I can.

So....

First up were these fab white and gold sandals.

They were reduced to just £15 in the sale and I was drawn to them immediately.

They have little zips up the back of them so there's no faffing about with the buckles needed - and I just love them.

I think they may look a little too "clumpy" to pair with a dainty summer dress, so I was thinking more denim shorts and a floaty summer top perhaps.

But I'm still waiting for some sunshine...

Then I grabbed a lovely midnight blue maxi dress with a white butterfly print.

The dress is a floor skimming length on me and it hangs lovely.

The waist has a small elasticated band which helps to create a slight overhang effect of the fabric at the top over the skirt section - more tummy hiding tactics.

I was planning on wearing flip-flops with this for a low-key, low-effort summery day look - obviously, I'm still waiting to try it out.

The next dress was one that I was determined to love no matter what, so I tried it on in numerous sizes - a ten, a twelve and a fourteen.

I really love skater dresses and have a fair few different ones in my wardrobe.

I find them very flattering, but as this one has a V neck detail (which is hard to see on the picture) the size ten was tight and gave me a few "boob issues" (which never happens usually) but whilst the size fourteen alleviated this issue it was far too big elsewhere - so I decided on the size twelve in the end.

Then I had to overcome the issue that I felt the dress wasn't really flattering on my shape after all.

The skirt is really quite "poofy" and it naturally stands away from the body in a kind of lampshade style...I know...I make it sound terrible don't I, but it's really not...I like it.

But whilst I like the style, I felt that the highest white stripe on the skirt sat too high up my waist and just made my waist appear a lot wider than it actually is.

Eek.

To try and overcome this I decided to add an elasticated waist belt around this top white stripe and try to create the illusion that it starts further down my body than it actually does and is kind of "pushed down" a little.

(And it nipped in my waist a little bit too - never a bad thing!)

Even The Hubby noticed what I was trying to do with the belt, so it must have worked a little bit.

I would definitely team this dress with my new biker jacket from ONLY at The Hut (find here) and some suede effect chunky red heels and a red clutch that I've had for ages.