Review: Unique Vintage Watermelon Dress

Fact: there is no finer fruit on the planet than the reigning queen of the summer BBQ, more commonly known as the watermelon. Not only is watermelon my actual favorite food at the moment, it's been one of my very favorite choices for a novelty print. The only things I've bought for my baby so far are two watermelon dresses and a watermelon tutu. I'm that kind of obsessed.

Hot Hot Hot!

Just in case you missed all of my recent complaints about the unbearable summer weather, let me alert you to an important fact: it is hot in Chicago. Disgustingly, humidly, sweat-through-your-clothes-immediately HOT. For reasons that now seem incredibly silly, I decided to tough it out this summer and go without air-conditioning. Those reasons included the following:

1) We don't own an A/C;
2) It would cost a fortune;
3) We'd have to call our building manager to install an A/C
4) We have lots of fans!
5) We survived unbearable heat last summer.

This is clearly not how next summer will go. When it's this hot, I don't want to do anything, even things I typically love. Cook dinner? You've got to be kidding me! Take a walk? Um, maybe in October. Wear my favorite dresses? Absolutely not -- I don't want them to get sweaty, and I don't want to be uncomfortable, either. This last one has led me to finally embrace a major trend in the retro-style world: wearing my dresses as skirts!

Review/Wishlist Update: Heart of Haute Strawberry Skirt

In my very first Wishlist Wednesday post, I shared one of my most-wanted strawberry-print items: the twirl skirt from Heart of Haute. Well, I'm pleased to report that in my ongoing quest to fill my entire wardrobe with fruit prints, I got my hands on it!

Wishlist Wednesday #13

It's been a while since I did a proper Wishlist Wednesday post, so I'm hoping today's installment is a real humdinger! I've done a few updates on previous Wishlist Wednesday posts, showcasing pieces that I ended up buying, and I have a feeling that some of these pretties will make their way into my wardrobe sooner rather than later! Today I'm featuring pieces that just say "summer" to me. Fruit prints, popsicles, and open-toed shoes await you below!

$25 and Under

I have this piece in pink, and reach for it all the time, so I'm pretty sure that I'd get plenty of wear out of this orange peony hair flower from Daisy Jean Floral Designs. I love the subtle ombre effect, and the color just screams summer to me!

Wishlist Wednesday Update: Effie's Heart Lemons

The theme of today is 'when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.' I've had another pretty rough day of travel and a full day of work after waking at 4:45am. This delightful marathon culminated in a surprise thunderstorm, a mad dash across Museum Campus to my bus (during which time I got absolutely drenched), and a longer-than-usual bus ride in which rain dripped onto me inside the bus. Oh, and a clogged drain in the bathroom sink, which may or may not get fixed tomorrow. Le sigh. However, this makes me appreciate my cozy apartment more than usual, and now that I'm dry, I'm just hoping that Jeff gets home soon, because I'm excited to see him after my weekend in New York!

Way back in the early days of this blog, I went nuts over fruit prints for the first (but not the last!) time. I already own two other Effie's Heart dresses in the exact same cut as this lemon print dress, and since I love them both, I felt confident that I needed another. Well, after waiting a couple of months, I'm happy to update you all on the status of my fruit-printed dress collection! I ordered it in one of Modcloth's sitewide sales, and this was definitely worth it. Don't you just love it when something completely lives up to your fanciful expectations?

Today: Guest Blogging at Pinup Persuasion!

Something exciting is happening today: I have a guest post over at Pinup Persuasion! It's one of the very first retro-style blogs I started reading, so I'm over the moon to actually have something I wrote up on her very excellent blog! Seriously, people, I'm trying to tamp down on the urge to use exclamation points everywhere.

My guest post features this amazing watermelon skirt from Unique Vintage, styled three different ways.  As regular readers know, though, when I love something, I really love it, so here's a bonus fourth outfit that I couldn't resist photographing!