A Letter From a Reader: The Barbara Rose Maxi (Elaine, 10 nov)
I had not worn white since my wedding day. Then I saw the Barbara at a garden party, and I have not taken it off since.
Six things one long rose dress gets right that forty years of “sensible” colours got wrong.
Elaine · Hervey Bay, Queensland · 5 min read
My mother had a rule about white. White was for brides and tennis, she said, and a woman over forty in white was asking for a coffee stain. I am 62, and I have obeyed her ever since my wedding day: beige, navy, and a great deal of a colour the shops call “taupe”. Then, this spring, at a garden party at my cousin Margaret’s place outside Childers, a woman my age came down the garden path in a long white dress covered in soft pink watercolour roses, and every woman on the verandah turned to look.
Her name is Heather, she is from Bundaberg, and she told me she had bought it the week before and nearly sent it back because she “was not a white person”. The dress is the Barbara, from Portsea Boutique, a small Australian boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I ordered one that night, fully expecting to send it back. I did not, and I wrote to the boutique to tell them why, and they asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read. So here it is, the six things it gets right.
Long dresses for a woman our age, if you have looked lately, come in two piles. The first pile is the sensible one, beige and navy and taupe, the kind of dress nobody has ever remembered you in. The second pile is the pretty one, bright prints on a stark white, which looks lovely on the girl in the photograph and like a hospital gown on the rest of us.
A dress nobody notices, or a dress you cannot live in. I stopped accepting that a woman my age has to choose, and Heather on the garden path was the proof.
Mine on the wardrobe door, hat and basket ready for the next garden party.
The roses are big and soft, and that is the whole point
This is the thing I would tell you if I only had a minute. The Barbara has big watercolour roses in soft and deep pink, painted so they drift into each other, with pale green leaves running between them. One big soft rose reads from across a garden as one lovely thing, while a hundred tiny flowers just read as busy. On Heather it looked like she had picked the roses herself.
Big floral prints usually aren’t for me, but these roses are beautiful. They stand out without looking too busy.
Patricia G., MorningtonThe white is soft, so it looks fresh instead of stark
The other half of the trick is the white. The roses are painted in watercolour, so the pink washes into the white rather than sitting on top of it, and from a step away the whole dress reads as a soft blush. It is light and airy for a warm spring afternoon, and nothing like the stark white my mother warned me about.
The print up close. You can see why I could not stop touching it.
I don’t often wear white, but the pink roses soften the whole look. It feels lovely and feminine.
Judith A., ToowoombaOne gathered seam at the waist gives it a shape
Long dresses can turn into a tent, which was the other half of my mother’s warning. The Barbara has one soft gathered seam at the waist, and the skirt falls long and relaxed from there, so there is a shape to you instead of a lot of fabric. Nothing pulls, nothing clings, and it moves beautifully when you walk. I wore mine to Margaret’s next lunch, and by dessert I had forgotten I had it on.
Back at Margaret’s a month later, in my own Barbara this time. Peter took this one by the fence.
Long dresses can hang rather straight on me. The gathered waist gives this one a much nicer shape.
Heather C., WarrnamboolA V-neck and three-quarter sleeves
The Barbara has a soft V-neck, which works with pearls or gold, and that is exactly how Heather wore hers, with her mother’s pearls. The sleeves stop just below the elbow. That covers the tops of the arms, which I have been quietly hiding for twenty years, but it does not look like you are hiding anything, and it is cool enough for a warm afternoon in the garden.
The Barbara, folded on the kitchen table the morning it came, next to my tea and the roses from the garden.
The neckline is flattering, and I love the three-quarter sleeves. Nice to have my arms covered without wearing another layer.
Linda P., LauncestonSide pockets, which I did not know I needed
The Barbara has side pockets. At the party Heather had her phone in one and her sunglasses in the other, and she carried a plate of scones down the garden steps with both hands. Meanwhile I was on the verandah with my handbag over one shoulder, my cardigan over the other, and Peter holding my hat. That was the moment I decided to ask her.
Finally, a pretty maxi dress with pockets! I can keep my phone close without carrying my handbag around the whole time.
Carol F., WollongongLong to the ankle, and the same cut from S to 5XL
It falls to the ankle and comes in every size from S right up to 5XL, the same cut the whole way up, which I wish more places would bother with. Margaret has ordered one for herself, and my sister-in-law Lyn is getting one for Christmas, and I have not told her yet that it is white.
It’s lovely to find a floral maxi in my size. So many pretty dresses seem aimed at younger women, but this one caught my eye.
Rosemary T., BunburyThe Barbara, against the dresses I had been buying
You can buy a long dress almost anywhere. I know, because I have owned most of them, and given the rest to the op shop. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Beige, navy and taupe nobody remembers
Tiny prints that read as busy
Shapeless, or tight in all the wrong places
Nowhere to put your phone or your sunglasses
Nobody has ever asked where you got it
Big soft watercolour roses, one lovely thing at a glance
A soft white that reads as a blush, not a bedsheet
One gathered waist seam, long to the ankle
Side pockets for your phone and your sunglasses
Asked about at a garden party in Childers
About the price
I will be straightforward about the price, because it was the thing that made me suspicious. The Barbara is A$76.95, and it was A$153.00.
The boutique says the spring sale price is about making room for the summer stock, selling directly, with no middleman taking a cut. That is their arithmetic, not mine. What I can tell you is that I have paid more than that for a taupe dress I wore twice.
If you have spent forty years in beige because somebody once told you white was not for women like us, this is the dress I would hand you instead.
— Elaine
The Barbara White Watercolour Rose Maxi Dress
- Big soft and deep pink watercolour roses on white
- V-neck and three-quarter sleeves
- Gathered waist seam, flowing skirt to the ankle
- Side pockets
- Sizes S to 5XL, free delivery across Australia
Spring sale on now. The middle sizes are already going.