A STYLISH GRANDMA

Hi,

Hope you all had a fantastic Mother's Day!

Mine was not too bad, my younger vegan daughter cooked me vegan crumpets with raspberry sauce which tasted quite good and my oldest daughter and a new mother herself (my beautiful granddaughter is just one month old) called to wish me "Happy Mothers Day" which brings me to the topic of this post in some way.  You might expect me to write about a special mother-daughter or mother-son relationship but what I would like to tell about is a dress.

Let me explain.  A few weeks ago my husband and I were invited to a birthday party of one of my friends from when I was very involved with the Russian diaspora until 10 years ago when I married a man from South Africa.

It lead to a merger of friends and an expansion of our own circles into one big multicultural mess, I am joking.  Actually, becoming a part of different cultures really helped us to embrace and understand more deeply the other partner's background, life values and the likes.

On the negative side, I don't follow the lives of my counterparts as closely as before, however, whenever a big gathering takes place, we are invited.  Both of us look forward to such occasions - my South African husband is madly in love with Russian food and loves the style in which we Russians celebrate our milestones by inviting as many people as possible, eating as much food and drinking as much vodka as we possibly can and dancing well into the night

and I have a chance to catch up with old friends and learn all the news about their lives and people we have in common.

"

A GOOD PAIR OF SHOES, AS WE ALL KNOW TOO WELL, CAN SALVAGE THE MOST SIMPLEST DRESS

"

I haven't been to such a gathering since I became a grandmother a month ago and although I had nothing to do with the actual baby's birth, I knew people would be seeing me through a "grandmother prism", making jokes and calling me "babushka".  Please don't get me wrong, I am totally and utterly excited about having a grand child and am extremely happy for my daughter but when someone calls you "babushka", it evolves certain image of an old lady with grey hair wrapped in a woolen shawl and I refuse to be remotely associated with this image or worse, look like one, right?  And for that reason only I wanted to look my youngest best.  Call me vain and superficial if you please.

And so the search for a perfect dress which would fit the brief had begun.  Ironically, I found it by pure accident.  We were taking an afternoon stroll though a major thoroughfare of one of the Sydney suburbs, just doing window shopping when I, forgive the pun, spotted it in the window of the Witchery store.  At first, it looked a bit short and I didn't even want to go in and try it on but then curiosity took over so I went into the store and asked the shop assistant for my size.

Surprisingly, it was a size smaller then I normally wear but it felt comfortable all over, my husband gave me a nod of approval and proceeded to the counter to pay for it.

It has a youthful look about it, thanks to the small white polka dots, the choker and the flared sleeves which are in fashion right now and I liked that it has key hole at the front and back which adds a little unexpected surprise.

I first thought of wearing nude colour stockings but visually they were making the dress look really short so I changed them for opaque which I think was the sensible thing to do.

And I was going to compromise on shoes and wear something comfortable.  Instead I dug into my closet and brought out my old but oh so faithful Manolo Blahnik shoes which I purchased a long time ago but, as has been proved so many times before, it is worth investing in a good pair of shoes as we all know too well, they can salvage the simplest dress but no matter how grand your frock is, wear it with bad shoes and it will be ruined.

I am wearing a dress from Witchery, shoes - Manolo Blahnik (old), handbag - Chanel (old), earrings - Swarovski

Until then
Anna
xo

Linking up with Elegance and Motherhood, Fashion Should be Fun, A Pocketful of Polka Dots, Nancy Fashion Style, Style Nudge