You have $50.00 bones and a "thing" coming up...date night, drinks with the girls, parent teacher conferences, you get the idea. You want to look chic, and alluring. Maybe not for the teacher conference bit. Or maybe you do! (I remember all the single Moms in my junior high school furiously applying lipstick in the Girl's washroom before meeting with the very available French Teacher. Turns out he only liked teenage Girls and was fired from his post. True Story!)
When buying dresses on the cheap, remember that chances are it is not going to be a mainstay in your wardrobe for long. The fabric is often pretty thin and chances are the garment isn't going to be lined. That also means the dress is going to not like being washed or ironed. That being noted, on to the fun!
V Necks are the most universally flattering neckline. It works for everyone. How does it pull this off? It visually elongates the neck and frames the face. It also (depends on how deep a V it is) makes a bust look less prominent and fuller face look more streamlined. (However, if you wear a V down to your belly button, this will make your bust look MORE prominent.)
If you are trying to balance out a fuller lower body and want to create a bust, wear something that adds volume, such as ruffles, pleats or knots. The dress furthest to the right has a knot at the neckline and would do a great job.
If you would like to make your legs look longer, look to the dress in the middle for tips. They have paired a short skirt with black opaque tights and black shoes. That will make your legs look like long and lean stems. A nude shoe with bare legs will also do the same trick. However, when mixing blacks, make sure you are putting warm blacks with warm blacks and cool blacks with cool blacks. The world won't be swallowed into a black hole if you don't match your warms and cools, but it just won't look as polished. How can you tell if a black is warm? It has a brown undertone. A cool black will look like it has blue in it. The top black is a cool black, whilst the bottom black is warm.
The best accessory for a LBD is under $20.00 and you can get it at the Bay! What's this you ask? MAC's Russian Red lipstick. It has a blue undertone (which makes it a cool red) that makes teeth look whiter and won't make you look like you are an escort. Unless you are an escort. In that case, wear this and you could pass as a consort. Remember with red lipstick there comes a rule that you play down the rest of your makeup to make it work. The 80's might be back, but lets learn from the mistakes of the days of yore.
The final step in this look is chic hair. I have absolutely no abilities in this area. I can barely flat iron and no way in hell can I curl without looking like an older, fatter Shirley Temple. So, I sock bun it. All you need is an old sock and a pair of scissors and an elastic. When I say old sock, I mean clean. No one wants hair that smells like a hockey bag. DAMN! If you have dark hair, use a black sock, and if you have lighter hair, use a lighter sock, or the sock might just peek through and knock you down a few pegs. Instructions are here.
Well, you have your dress, your lipstick and your sock bun! All you need now is an excuse to go out and shake what your Mama gave you!
Here is the list of the dresses!
Starting at the left:
2) EShakti Dress: $59.95 (It is less than $50.00 if you use coupon for 20% off! Code: BGFSHN101)
3) Carmakoma: €40.25
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Awesome post! So much great information to take away and put to use!
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