The Lovely Lookbook Link Up: Dresses

 

Welcome to The Lovely Lookbook, a monthly link up to share your style and find outfit inspiration! Our goal for The Lovely Lookbook is to help women of all shapes, sizes, and styles share their looks and find new outfits based on the theme of the month. For each Lovely Lookbook, Sarah and I will share our height and the size of clothing we’re wearing as a reference to help show you how to dress your body. Most times, we'll throw in extra style tips, like we did when we announced The Lovely Lookbook. We hope you'll join us! We want you to share your style to inspire others, and if you're trying to figure out your style, we want to help you look and feel amazing in your own skin and clothing!

September's Lovely Lookbook features dresses, and here are our looks:

 

How gorgeous is Sarah?! I love this look of hers. I really really wish that I could borrow this dress and not look completely inappropriate. Sadly, I'd look like I was wearing a shirt and be arrested for indecent exposure, or it would definitely be stolen from her closet. ;)

Sarah's dress here is a size small and it's from Nordstrom. She's 5'3", but she looks so stinking tall in this photo. The soft neutral dress makes her look long and lean, because it creates one long visual line with her skin tone. (This is a great trick you can duplicate with any colored top and bottom!) The built-in waistline of the dress shows off her waist, and adding the polka dot jacket makes her look even tinier because it visually cinches in at the waist. I love the mix of feminine in the floaty dress and structured jacket and the soft blush paired with black leather. Adorable! I could seriously go on and on about how much I love this look, but I know you've got places to go and people to see!

I chose to layer a top under my trusty shift dress for this month's challenge. Layering is one of my favorite ways to switch up a favorite piece.

 

This dress is a size 4 from JC Penney, and the top is a medium from J. Crew Factory. I'm 5'11" and I wear all kind of sizes to make sure I can get the length of things right. I've come to realize that every designer's sizing is different. For a while, I struggled with having such a wide spread of sizes in my closet, but no one else sees the size on the tag, and if the items fit, all they notice is that you look put together. This combo has me thinking about other tops I could wear under this dress to change up the look, so you'll probably see a few of those coming up on GTR! I also really like the button up collar peeking over the leather collar of the dress. Unique detailing like a leather collar, bright color, or embellishment helps classic pieces feel more modern, and again, pairing opposites like the masculine leather and girly polka dots always gives an outfit good visual interest.

So there you have it, two dresses styled differently and for two different body types. Let’s see yours!

A quick reminder of how The Lovely Lookbook will work:

• The link up begins on the 1st of every month. So, on the 1st, visit Greater Than Rubies or Tucker Up to link up your styled item. We want you to share your style and/or find inspiration from how others styled their looks. Feel free to link up as many looks as you’d like. If you wear a dress every day for the next two weeks and want to link up each one, awesome. Just one? Perfect. If you aren't a blogger, feel free to just stop by for some inspiration!
• The link up will run for two weeks (today’s closes on September 14th).
• Also, from the 1st through the 14th, you can vote for the next month's topic. (Starting today, you’ll vote for October’s.)
• On the 15th of every month, we’ll do a recap post and announce the following month’s theme.
• All we ask is that you link your post(s) back to our blogs (Tucker Up and Greater Than Rubies) or grab our buttons from our sidebars. You don’t have to follow us, or give us your first born child to participate. :)
• If you Instagram, you can use the hashtag #thelovelylookbook to share your style for all to see (or get people to vote for the theme you want next month!) and follow us @TheLovelyLookbook if you like!

We're so excited about this opportunity to showcase a bunch of different ways that women style items they already own! Now link up those dresses, browse for inspiration, and cast your vote!

 

What do you want to wear and see styled for the October 1 Lovely Lookbook?