Evening Elegance with Pinup Girl Clothing

 

It’s something every pinup needs: the perfect evening dress. One that can be worn to not just a formal event but something that is just dressy. You want something that is comfortable, versatile and glamorous. Something to turn heads in the best sort of way. Something that is timeless, classical and a statement piece. For me, I found all this in the Monica dress from Pinup Girl Clothing.

So what makes the Monica dress so special? For a long time I didn’t know. It felt unobtainable due to the international exchange rate and every time I wanted to purchase it, it was seemingly out of stock in my size. Then, by chance an amazing person from my past gifted me one and I was overjoyed! Finally one of these incredible dresses was mine. To hold a Monica it feels almost magical. Due to the internal structure its quite heavy but the external matte knit fabric is slinky to touch and truly elegant in person! I couldn’t wait to try it on, though due to the disgustingly HUMID summer Australia experienced, I didn’t get the chance til April, once the weather had cooled.

One amazing thing about the Monica is that is has built in shapewear. I’ve worn it both with and without foundations and on both occasions I’ve turned heads. The fabric, which is a matte knit falls beautifully around this dress and helps hide and unwanted lumps, bumps and bulges, which makes it the perfect dress for any ladies who might sometimes feel self-conscious with something firm fitted. Do be aware though it is quite firm, if you aren't comfortable with tight clothing I'd suggest sizing up. One thing I will note here too is that the bust ALSO features the built in shapewear. If you are big busted or pear shaped, this may cause a bit of an issue. I’ve read that some girls who were bigger busted found it too flattening/firm across the bust. For a smaller busted girl like me, I find without a super padded bra I look even smaller busted than I actually am, but the dress does right the bra quite a bit. I’ve seen a few girls who have had this taken out of the dress and it’s something I think I may do myself to allow for a fuller bust look.

The Monica features 3 quarter sleeves and a V style bustline. These are two features I absolutely adore. The bustline is super flattering and as a smaller busted girl helps my bust look a lot fuller than it is. The longer sleeves also help smooth my arms out, as at present my upper arms are a problem area. Something else to note about this dress is the zip. It features an invisible zip in the side seam. I’d heard a lot of mixed reviews from girls prior to getting my own, about the zip catching or being perfectly fine and decided not to tempt fate with my track history of zippers, especially invisible ones. With a bit of wiggling however I can pull this dress down over my head (even though their website says not to, there is NO WAY I could get this dress over my hips) and if you aren’t as big in the hip as I am I’m sure you’d be able to shimmy this dress up. Once on though it stays very much in place. I do experience a little creep around the hips but I put this down to my bigger hips. 

My Monica is a Large and while I could have sized up to an XL, I feel like it would have made it too big in the shoulders. I do struggle with styles that fit sit on my shoulders as they are rounded which means styles easily slid off. This dress does have an incredible amount of stretch for something with shapewear and even with my 44 inch hip the shapewear does cover almost all of my butt. Overall I find this dress comfortable, easy to move in and incredibly glamourous. Whether I’m laced or not I always get so many lovely compliments and it’s such a versatile style to accessorisze too!

The Monica retails for $144USD which equates to around $189AUD, exchange rate depending as well as shipping. Its worth every penny! The Monica is available in a variety of colours and is also now available in a mermaid version! I’d Love to get this dress in a red colourway and have the sleeves shortened to match a similar dress Marilyn once wore. Basically, I love my monica and I wear it at every appropriate opportunity. 

Also a MASSIVE thank you to Saycheese Cake photography for allowing me to use the photos from our recent shoot at Sky Sirens in this review!

Til next time darlings!