A dress with sleeves wasn’t on my Caribbean packing list at all, but I was so excited when Patricia gave me a Princess Ella dress with short sleeves that I changed into it in the car on our way to the airport! This new version isn’t even on the Bolero website yet—Patricia had literally just come from photographing it in a shoot.
What else is new about the Princess Ella? It has POCKETS!!!
The corset-back adds fun, feminine interest from behind. Patricia even included extra ties and ribbons for me to use!
But if you need your dress to be more serious, you can omit them entirely, and the print will completely camouflage the empty loops.
The corset tie is more than decorative, however. Together with the right bra, it can really give a slimming look. In the photo on the left, I’m wearing it tightly cinched with my Ewa Machalak bra that I bought at Levana Bratique (read here for more about my amazing bra shopping experience there). On the right, I’m wearing it loosely cinched with a tee-shirt bra (after seeing it in the photos that I took in the Miami airport, I had to wait until I could change out of that bra to take any more!).
Here’s what else I love about this dress:
- The sweetheart neckline is ultra-flattering without being too revealing. (It’s begging for a necklace or scarf, but I hadn’t packed either accessory for my trip.)
- The feminine ruching down the center of the bust is one of my favorite details.
- It has an elongated silhouette that is great for those of us with short waists and a large chest. Unlike the empire waist of the sundress, the Ella is made of long panels—two princess seams down the entire front, and two seams descending from a shoulder yoke down the length of the dress in back.
- This is my favorite print in the Bolero collection.
In the end, I wore this versatile dress going as well as coming from my vacation (and under my sunburn-shielding Campbell & Kate shirt again, of course)!
For even more details about the Ella, be sure to visit Erica’s excellent review on the A Sophisticated Pair blog.
Wow, looks like this dress was designed for you Darlene!
Thanks for the gorgeous pictures and the description of why the fit of the Princess Ella is so flattering.
You’re so right about the long panels and princess seams to create a flattering look for those with short waists and a large chest. One of the inspirations behind this dress was the desire to give a solution to the complain of women trying some dresses that look so good in the front but the extra fabric in the back make them so unflattering -not talking about Bolero dresses-
This style is so popular that the customers who purchase it, usually come back for another one and because of the warm weather, we decided to make the short sleeves version of the original Princess Ella.
Looking for ways to improve our products is always a thing here at Bolero, so we were thinking what can make this style even better? And the answer was: Pockets!
So glad you were the first one to wear our brand new sample and so happy Bolero was with you in your special trip too.
Many thanks to your awesome photographer too!