Silver Cat Tea Party: A Lucky Find! Another Trashy Diva Dress From My 2014 Wishlist

Trashy Diva is easily my favorite vintage reproduction brand.

While they can be pricy, what I really love about Trashy Diva is the prints on their dresses. Year after year they come out out with a selection of dresses in fun prints that won't be found anywhere else. Also, sadly, once that year's line of dresses are sold, it is unlikely you will ever see that print again. The upside to this is that if you have an older style print dress, especially if it's in a common size, it would not be too hard to find a buyer on ebay or through a swap and sell group online to make some of your money back when you are ready to part with your lovely dress (given that your dress is still in good condition). ;)

Another thing that I really love about Trashy Diva is that their styles are so unique, varied, and period appropriate. First off, they offer a great selection of dresses in 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's style mainly finding their niche in the 1940's era.

Secondly, while they seem to have a handful of styles that may come back into play year after year such as their Alison and Ashley dresses, some styles only come back after several years have past such as is seen with their Sweetie and 40's Flutter dress. And even with their staple styles, because their prints are so varied and not often reproduced, even when a new Alison or Ashley comes out it seems like a completely new dress. They come out with so many different things it's hard to get bored of their designs.

Last, I love that they release their dresses in mostly rayon which is very period appropriate for their dress style and cotton which is also a fabric which would have been used in the era they are trying to reproduce. I have never seen them use polyester. They used to have 100% silk dresses which I would have loved to see, but then again, I cringe at the thought of how much they would charge if they went back to 100% silk.

With all that being said, every year they come out with their new line of dresses and separates and every year I pine over several of their styles. This has been my biggest year of pining, but then again, because I only took my first plunge into buying TD two years ago, this is also my first year of watching their designs come out from day one of the beginning of the year.

In any case, when their Crepe Myrtle Ashley dress sold out in my size (as well as a size up and a size down from my usual size), I was resolved that it wasn't meant to be. But then one day, what do you know, my size mysterious popped back up on their site. And knowing that most likely that meant they only had the one dress in that size, and having a coupon burning a hole in my pocket, I decided it was now or most likely never and took the plunge again and bought it! While I'm still waiting to see if they will release Sweetie dresses in solid colors this year (they were expecting a summer release in this style), thus far, this rounds up my Trashy Diva wishlist for 2014 with the exception of a Streetcar dress in Cherries if I can find her. And here it is, another dress review!

Dress Review:

The Ashley dress is a 1940's style dress which features super cute capped and puffed sleeves, a slightly crossover v-neckline with small pleats at the shoulders and under the bust, and a thick, wide, fully-lined waist band. The back of the bodice is fully covered with a high collar, and also has small pleats just under the shoulders for easy movement. The skirt is flared yet slender as is the fashion for 1940's style dresses and this dress has a side zip. The print of this dress is the Crepe Myrtle which features white and very slightly bluish grey flowers with plentiful green leaves on a black background.