On Dungarees

It's everywhere now, dungarees are acceptable to wear again. After all, once Alexa Chung wears something it has to be cool. All the newspaper magazines' style columns have been full of them the last couple of weekends, Leandra Medine declared them a man-repelling must, and Zara is stocking full-length leather ones (everything cool comes in leather now). My Mum and sister both queried last weekend if I was getting a pair, and I had to admit that the closest I'd come to considering dungarees was a denim pinafore dress. In celebration of recieving my dissertation grade, I headed into the centre of Swansea to try one, to see if I liked them.

Venturing into Topshop, I had a quick wander, selected a dungaree-dress and then, on a whim, likely spurred on by my family's query and suggestion that I could wear them, straight-up dungarees. I headed to the changing room, having been smiled at helpfully by two assistants as I dallied at the various dungaree locations through the store, and then considered that maybe my Iron Man-tee wasn't the best option for trying things on, and grabbed a plain tee, to give the clothes (shown below, not on me, I wasn't feeling particularly narcissistic that day) the best chance I could. Then came the moments of truth.

Topshop MOTO Vintage Denim Dungarees, Topshop MOTO Blue Denim Pini Dress

I didn't hate how I looked in either garment, they didn't hit me at the wrong point of my thighs, or sit weirdly on my hips, and I looked vaguely like the images of models in them that adorned the Topshop stairs, in a less-skinny, not-black-and-white, not-long-blonde-haired sort of way. But I felt wrong. The whole bib-front deal felt like I was constantly side-boobing my reflection, I had flashbacks to the annoyance of using the bathroom in them when I was aged 7-10 (I'm guessing based on where the memory is) and maybe it's just these ones, but all the fastenings felt a little bulky around my hips, which are already plenty curve enough for me.

If there's something about dungarees that you love, I say go for it, but I think it's something I'll be steering clear of. I probably should have been warned when House of Holland showed the following for AW2012 and my mind jumped to Super Mario Bros...

via Style.com