Earning Your Stripes

Something about the onset - well all right, not the onset but the "coming one day soon, no really, honest!" - of spring (and, eventually, summer) brings out the inner sailor in most of us - all blue and white, clean and fresh and breezy. Breton stripes are everywhere and I've been powerless to resist - sorely tempted by the Alice by Temperley striped jersey dress (but resolute in the face of a high-ruched side and the certainty that these legs aren't fit for that degree of show) I also flirted with a cute See by Chloe frilled nautical number and Vivienne Westwood's Ariana, until finally settling, rather more prosaically (not to mention bargainously - 'twas £9.99!!), for a blue & white stripe, three-quarter sleeve tee from Zara.

Breton stripes aside, something about this Full Circle Peggy maxi is also speaking to me, but I'm not sure whether that's the dress itself or its claims to "wrap around the body for a flattering cut". I want to believe it, want to believe that I'd slip it on and be effortlessly Riviera-worthy, but somewhere through the siren song of its bargain price and admitted loveliness I can hear another, darker voice muttering: "Flattering for whom, exactly? An edamame-munching beanpole of scrawny proportions looking to flesh out their frame and fake some womanly curves? Maybe. A 37-year-old mother of three with a few pounds of baby weight still making their unwanted presence felt: perhaps not so much."