MelodyMae.co.uk » Last Days of Winter -- Banned Sally Swing Dress

Well. Winter is apparently not over yet!

We had a week of warm weather in England, and there’s swimsuits in stores already, but let’s honest here — it’s kinda still winter. And although I’m gagging for some real sunshine, it does mean I get to wear this dress more! I mentioned that my last review was missing the Banned Sally Swing Dress, but it deserved it’s own post!

Now. I live in England, which is infamous for it’s long, fair winters and particularly bland weather. This is certainly true —

Sleeves

When I saw the Sally dress back at London Edge in September, the first thing that got me was the sleeves. I love sleeves in my winter dresses, but without stretch fabrics, larger arms can be difficult to fit. Although it’s a winter dress, I feel like the split sleeves of this dress work really well to fit a range of arm sizes.

My favourite way to wear this is having the sleeves hiked up a bit to create little princess-style cap sleeves! If I had some tattoos on my arm, it would be a cute way to frame them!

Sizing

My Banned dresses, including my last dress review, are a 3XL, so I decided to stay with the same size for this dress. As this is a woven polyester, there’s little to no stretch. However, no stretch isn’t always a bad thing! It fits pretty well!

I will say, I’ve actually taken the lining out of this dress. I have a real problem with linings in dresses with most companies, honestly. The linings are usually the completely wrong fabric to suit the outer fabric, and it causes a lot of distortion. This dress was sadly that kind, and when I first put it on the bodice was all contorted. Luckily I knew straight away that it was the lining (Hooray sewing knowledge), so it came out fairly quickly. I cut the whole thing out and suddenly the bust sat correctly.

Side from that — it fits well! There’s not much room in the dress, the bodice is just big enough to fit my bust. So size up if you’re full busted!

Since I took the lining out, I could also use the full volume of the dress and wear a petticoat! The Lifeforms petticoat I had from my last post on Banned is still going strong. However, since it’s dropped a little over time (I wear this a lot), it’s the perfect volume for this!

The Banned Sally Swing dress is a great little dress though, the colours are gorgeous, perfect from autumn to winter… Or spring, if you’re from England.