Can we talk dresses?

[MaggiWrites]

I agree that the dress looks beautiful on you, and it's plenty noticeable, and even if the look doesn't feel like you, it could be a fun and impressive character to play once in a while. However, you shouldn't buy anything that you'll be worrying about the practicality of dancing in. If you're buying it to compete latin in, you should shorten it, but before you do, think about whether shortening it enough to avoid heel-catching worry will hurt the look. I'm having trouble coming up with an attractive alteration that would let it work worry-free for jive. If you can, go for it; it's gorgeous. But if not, and you don't want to buy it just for showcases in dances it works better for, I'd say unfortunately not.

My partner's wife (who doesn't dance herself) does my dresses and hair etc. She thinks just removing the bottom ruffle would be enough for tango. We'll try just pinning it up and see how it moves. If it's too perky like a bird flicking its tail feathers, we'll pass on it, but if it still swishes, that and making the front a bit shorter to match would work at least for something slower like tango, we think.

 

[fatherdowling]

The red lipstick looked right for the occasion and the lighting, but with dark hair and eyes and very pale skin with no natural colour in my cheeks, in daylight, in everyday life, I look like a vampire .

Red lipstick looks better on us vampire pale girls! Lol

 

[fascination]

View attachment 6447View attachment 6448
Not quite as many stones added as some of the other posts, but I added about a gross of 16ss sapphire stones to my dress and about half a gross of sapphire AB.

Also, in case it helps anyone, the preciosa stone colors in the other photo are left to right:
- Cobalt (cheap amazon brand, only used a few of these)
- sapphire
- sapphire AB
- cobalt ab
- dark indigo

I also didn’t end up using them, but the Micheal’s Beadsland Austrian crystals are very nice, surprisingly. They’re the same cut as the Swarovski Sirius stones.

This is lovely. I think variety almost always looks better

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

the giraffe neck

Now, now…I don’t like to see women criticize themselves (though I am often guilty of doing the same thing - but the world will do enough of that without our adding to the problem)…perhaps we could rephrase that as “elegant” rather than “giraffe,” lol.

Anyway, that photo makes you look about 5’10” tall, since there’s nobody else in it for a height comparison. I had to re-read your post several times before I understood that you were using the words “shrimpette” and “munchkin” to refer to yourself!

 

[MaggiWrites]

Now, now…I don’t like to see women criticize themselves (though I am often guilty of doing the same thing - but the world will do enough of that without our adding to the problem)…perhaps we could rephrase that as “elegant” rather than “giraffe,” lol.

Anyway, that photo makes you look about 5’10” tall, since there’s nobody else in it for a height comparison. I had to re-read your post several times before I understood that you were using the words “shrimpette” and “munchkin” to refer to yourself!

The Giraffe Neck is my extended family's pet name for a feature several of us inherited from the same branch on the family tree . Has been for several generations. Maybe we should start saying "swan neck" instead ?

The photo had been cropped and the original shows more people for comparison. I figured just saying I wore higher heels than I usually do that time "because I'm short" would give the picture of a problem with the ruffled train to the dress. The man I was speaking to, partially shown, isn't tall either, so including him wouldn't have helped. I was using the cropped version of the picture that my teacher has up on the wall, and it doesn't fully show how the ruffles on the back of the skirt brushed the floor even with higher heels, also not completely shown, which I wore because it was a borrowed dress that I couldn't alter a lot until I decided to buy it. So I altered my 5'2" self to fit the dress, so to speak. (Well, OK, 5' 1 and a bit, but 2" is a more even number. I've been a pairs figure skater a lot longer than I've been a dancer and "pairs girls", as we call ourselves at any age, are all short. The 2026 Olympics pairs champions female partner, Riku Miura, is 4'9" and that's not unusual in the ice world. It's an asset in pairs, and we like to tease the taller women in singles and ice dance about their "towering" height.)

"Work with what you've got and take any advantage it gives you" is how we look at it. Dressing like an adult when you're kid-size can be a problem, though, which is what my dress question was about.