Happy Valentine’s Day: Bernie Dexter’s Sweetheart dress in doily print

I’m a sucker for fussy floral stuff. I’m not exactly Chintz Nation, but you give me a black dress covered in doily-decked pink and yellow nosegays and I’m in the clouds. We’re talking Bespinian proportions here, probably because nosegays and doilies remind me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. So when I first saw Bernie Dexter’s fabulous Sweetheart dress in the floral doily print, I just about died.

Of course, I didn’t immediately snatch the thing up the second I found it. Trying to be financially responsible, I decided to wait. Of course, Unique Vintage sold out of my size within the month and Bernie’s website wouldn’t restock for another mazillion years. Assuming I was SOL, I turned to the one person in the universe who would be able to source the dress in an XL: Amanda of Blue Fountain Plaza.

Amanda’s an expert in Bernie Dexter fashions and knows everything about the fabrics used in her line (mostly Michael Miller). If she doesn’t have a particular Bernie dress in your size, she can track it down for you. Within days, she’d found me my beautiful doily dress on Ebay UK and we were off to the races.

To put it simply, I love this dress. From the colors to the print to the flattering bodice to the perfectly full skirt, it’s the best. Bernie Dexter’s pieces sometimes vary sizewise, but the XL in this style was just perfect for my 43-32-48″ bod.

While it was warm enough to wear back when I first got it back in October, I’ve basically been waiting until Valentine’s Day to post about it. It’s not hard to see why. Pink flowers, duh. But even more precisely, the heart-shaped cutout on the back which gives the dress its “sweetheart” name.