Elaine's Notebook: The Sadie Dress
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At 62, I'd Decided a Pretty White Summer Dress Was for Younger Women. Then I Kept a Notebook for a Month.
Six things this soft wildflower dress gets right, written up from the notebook I kept the month I started wearing it.
Elaine · 62 · Hervey Bay, QLD · 5 min read
I'm 62, and there is one thing I have admired on other women my whole adult life: a light, pretty summer dress. The kind you see on someone walking along the esplanade and think, she looks cool and lovely. My daughter Emma wears them to the markets and looks like she has stepped out of a magazine. I tried, many times, and every time the dress let me down. The sleeves stopped at exactly the wrong place on the arm. It clung to my tummy. So somewhere in my fifties I quietly decided the pretty summer dress was for younger women, and I went back to my dark, sensible ones that "hide things." So this is not a review. It's a woman who changed her mind, telling you why.
The dress I'm writing about is the Sadie, a breezy floral summer dress from Portsea Boutique, a small shop near the water in Portsea that Mel has run for 22 years. My sister Wendy had seen it and said, "Just get it, Lainey. Summer's coming, and you've been wanting a dress like that for twenty years." She was right, as usual. When Portsea Boutique later asked if they could share my letter, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Straight out of the parcel. The first white dress in years I didn't immediately plan a cardigan around.
Here's what forty years of summer dresses taught me. The pretty summer dress is the most unforgiving thing in the shop. On a younger woman, anything works. On us, a dress that's slightly too tight, slightly too short in the sleeve or slightly too thin shows every single thing you'd rather it didn't. So you stop buying them. And then you stop wearing the thing you always loved, and you don't even notice you've given it up.
I'd spent twenty years admiring pretty summer dresses on everyone else, and telling myself they weren't for women like me.
The Sadie is the first one I've bought in over a decade that I actually wear, and having lived in it for a month, to the markets, to lunch, to the pier for dinner and to Christmas shopping, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it arrived. I hung it on the wardrobe door and looked at the sleeves first, before anything else. Old habits.
The sleeves come down far enough
This is what every other summer dress got wrong. The Sadie has elbow-length sleeves that come down far enough to cover the top of the arm, so there's none of that harsh line across the widest part. I don't pull at them, I don't fold them down, and I haven't once reached for a cardigan to cover them.
Look at those sleeves. That extra length is the whole difference, and it's why this one actually gets worn.
Markets on Saturday, the Sadie and flat sandals. Did not tug at a sleeve once. Felt, frankly, a bit smug.
Room through the middle, so it doesn't cling
The shape is relaxed. A soft tie sits at the waist and I set it where I like, and below it the skirt falls straight past the tummy and hips instead of gripping. It doesn't ride up when I reach for something, and it never looks like a tent either.
Caught myself side-on in a shop window on the Esplanade. Didn't wince. Kept walking. Progress.
Soft and light for a Queensland summer
It's a soft, breathable cotton blend, which is exactly what you want when it's 33 degrees and humid. It doesn't stick to you in the car, and it dries on the line before I've finished my morning cup of tea. It's become the most comfortable thing in my wardrobe for the hot months.
Off the line in an hour on a Hervey Bay morning. On a hot day, this is the only thing I want to put on.
33 degrees, Christmas shopping in Pialba. Cool enough to survive the car park. That's saying something.
Why the white: it makes the flowers look fresh
This is what the white does. It brightens the face, it makes a bit of summer colour look healthy rather than tired, and it lets the soft pink, lilac and blue wildflowers do the talking. With a tan sandal it's the classic, but I've worn it with white sneakers, with a denim jacket on a cool evening and with my old cream cardigan, and it looked right every time.
Wendy: "You look like you've been on holiday." I hadn't. It's just the white. Took ten years off the whole outfit.
A little collar that dresses up in seconds
The small pointed collar and the button front mean you can dress it up with almost nothing. A pair of earrings and it's right for lunch. A light cardigan over the shoulders and it's right for dinner. I wore it with gold hoops to dinner at the pier with Peter and felt more put together than I have in any going-out dress in years.
Ready for dinner at the pier. Add a pair of earrings and that's the whole outfit done.
Dinner at the pier. The Sadie, gold hoops, cream cardigan. A woman at the next table asked where it was from.
Sizes up to 5XL, and buy two, because it's white
The Sadie comes in sizes S to 5XL, AU 8 to 24, and because it's a relaxed fit I ordered my usual size and it fitted straight away. But here's my advice on a white dress: buy two. It's the one you'll reach for most, it's the one that meets a splash of Christmas gravy or a drip of mango, and you'll want the spare clean and ready in the drawer.
Mango, Boxing Day, front of the dress. Changed into the spare. Nobody knew. Wendy has ordered two of her own. "Not copying," she says.
This dress, against every summer dress before it
Most of us gave up on the pretty summer dress because the dresses let us down, not because we got too old for them. Here's the difference, laid out plainly.
Sleeves stop at the widest part of the arm
Clings, and shows every line
Thin, and sticks to you in the heat
Hidden under a cardigan "just in case"
Given up on by fifty-five
Elbow-length sleeves that cover the upper arm
A tie waist and a skirt that skims, never grips
Soft, breathable cotton blend
Wildflowers on white that brighten the face
The pretty summer dress, finally
About the price
The Sadie is A$84.95 at the moment. The website says it's usually A$339.95, and the reason it's down is that Portsea Boutique is closing the shop and moving online. I won't pretend I know what a dress like this ought to cost, but I can tell you I've spent more than that on dresses that went to the back of the wardrobe after one wear.
Portsea Boutique also take a bit off if you buy more than one: 15% for two, 20% for three, 25% for four and 30% for five, and it comes off automatically at the checkout. That's how I justified the spare, and why Wendy's order had two in it.
Delivery was free and tracked, and there are 30-day returns if it isn't right. After so many summer dresses that disappointed me, that's what got me to press the button.
If you're 55, or 62, or 70, and you quietly decided somewhere along the way that pretty summer dresses weren't for you any more, this is the one I'd hand you myself, while it's still in your size. It was never you. It was the dress.
Elaine
Sadie · Breezy Floral Summer Dress
Buy 2 save 15% · Buy 3 save 20% · Buy 4 save 25% · Buy 5 save 30%
- Elbow-length sleeves that cover the upper arm
- Soft tie waist, skirt that skims rather than clings
- Soft, breathable cotton blend for hot days
- Little collar and button front that dress up in seconds
- Soft wildflowers on white that brighten the face
- Sizes S to 5XL (AU 8 to 24)
- Free tracked delivery & 30-day returns
Clearing as the Portsea shop moves online, while sizes last.
About the writer. Elaine is 62 and lives in Hervey Bay, Queensland, with her husband Peter and Teddy, a little dog from the rescue shelter. She retired two years ago, walks Teddy every morning, helps out one morning a week at the local library, and is now, in her own words, "saying yes to things."
This page is an advertisement for Portsea Boutique. Individual experiences may vary. At her request, the portrait is an illustration rather than a photo of her. Portsea Boutique · Free tracked delivery · 30-day returns.