The Gingham Dress That Does The School Run And Lunch In One Go

A note from a reader about the small Queensland boutique dress with buttons, sleeves and a swing, that finally let her stop dressing around her middle.

For about six years now I have dressed around my middle, and every dress I bought was a negotiation with it.

You know the negotiation. Loose enough to hide it, which usually meant shapeless. Dark enough not to show it, which usually meant navy. Long enough, plain enough, safe enough. I told myself I was being sensible. The truth is I had stopped expecting to feel pretty in a dress.

Three weeks ago a friend of mine turned up to coffee in a blue gingham dress from a small Queensland boutique called Port Douglas Boutique. It is called the Shanna. She looked like summer. I want to tell you about it, because if you are a woman my age you may have been negotiating with your middle for years too.

What it is

It is a swing dress that sits just above the knee, in a small soft gingham check, blue or pink. A little stand collar and a soft V, small buttons all the way down the front, and three quarter sleeves that cover the top of the arm and stop at the forearm. The skirt is tiered, so it falls from the shoulder in soft layers and moves when you walk.

But I want to be honest about the part that actually mattered to me.

It does not touch my middle. At all.

That is the whole thing. The swing falls from the shoulder and the tiers float straight past my stomach, so there is air where I have always wanted air, and because it has a collar and buttons and proper sleeves it reads as a dress, not a smock. I put it on in the bedroom, turned side on to the mirror the way I always brace myself to do, and for the first time in years I did not reach for a cardigan.

Hanging by the window this morning. The blue. The pink is on order.

It swings instead of hiding. There is a difference, and you feel it the moment you walk.

The school run

The third time I wore it was the school run for my granddaughter Emma, straight into lunch with my daughter Kate, down from Melbourne for the week, with no time to change in between.

At the school gate another grandmother said, I love that dress, where is it from. At lunch the woman at the next table leaned over and asked the same thing. Kate watched it happen twice and said, Mum, you have not worn gingham since I was ten.

She was right. I had not worn anything that swung since I was ten.

"School gate and lunch in the same dress," Kate said. "And you did not tug at it once."

→ Read about the Shanna

What changed in three weeks

I had not been looking to feel pretty. By a certain age you quietly lower that bar to comfortable, and then again to covered. What surprised me about the Shanna is that it gave me all three without me choosing.

Three things I noticed in the first week, and I wrote them down because I knew I would want to remember.

1. The swing does the work. The tiers fall from the shoulder and float past the middle on their own. I stopped thinking about my stomach the moment it was on.

2. The sleeves are the right length. Three quarter, so the top of the arm is covered and the forearm is free. No cardigan at the school gate, none at lunch.

3. The buttons make it a dress. A little collar, buttons down the front and a soft V. It looks like I chose it on purpose, and it took four seconds.

It is light enough that I have worn it through real Queensland heat without wilting, and it has the kind of easy shape that lets me kneel in the garden, sit through a long lunch, and bend down for Digger, our little rescue terrier cross, without the dress fighting me once.

Now, about the price

I want to talk about the price, because it was the thing that almost stopped me. The Shanna for $88.95 is, frankly, suspicious. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote down what I had paid, or seen, for a swing shirt dress like this in the last couple of years.

• Witchery shirt dress, $169
• Blue Illusion, $119
• Port Douglas Boutique Shanna, $88.95

And underneath, in slightly larger letters, the only thing I could think to write. …how??

What I'd tell you if we were friends

If we were on my back verandah with a cold drink and you asked me whether you should order one, this is what I would say.

I would tell you that women our age have spent years being quietly taught that a soft middle means shapeless and dark. The Shanna is neither. It is a real dress with a collar and buttons and a swing, that simply happens to be cut so it never touches the part of you that you have been negotiating with. There is a difference, and you feel it the second it is on.

I would tell you the blue is the one I reach for most and the pink is the one Kate ordered for herself, which is the first time we have owned the same dress. I would tell you to buy two. If you buy two the stack discount comes off, and you will live in them anyway.

I would tell you that the popular sizes in the blue are already showing as low. When I checked again this morning a couple of the middle sizes were nearly out. The anniversary sale ends when the sizes do.

If you have, for longer than you would like to admit, been buying dresses to hide in, please do not wait.

While the sizes are still in stock.

— Julie