Welcome to Part 3 of my 3-part blog series, where I show you how my three 2019 Spring Carnival outfits came to life.
In this post I’ll share how I created my Oaks Day outfit. In previous posts I covered how I made my Derby Day and Melbourne Cup Day outfits.
My 2019 Spring Carnival Outfits – Left to Right: Derby Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Oaks Day
Last Minute Outfit Swap
After doing a little switcharoo of my Derby Day outfit, which meant my Cup Day outfit was now my Derby Day outfit and my Oaks Day outfit was now my Cup Day outfit, it meant that, with just a week till Oaks Day, I was one outfit short.
Luckily I am an avid outfit repeater and the obvious choice was to wear my purple Solace London dress. I am loving lilac this year and wearing a full pleated lilac dress to Oaks Day seemed very appealing.
My Solace London ‘Adami’ dress from net-a-porter.com
I had worn this dress previously to Ladies Day in Brisbane back in June. Oh, and also when I was judging Rocky Amateurs in May and to a high tea… let’s just say I got my money’s worth!
L-R Judging Rocky Amateurs, Entering Brisbane Ladies Day FOTF and attending the Tattersall’s High Tea.
Changes to the Dress
Since wearing it previously, I’d had the hemline shortened around 20cm. The dress was actually quite long- to my ankles, and I did feel it needed to be shortened to a midi length to make it a little more race day appropriate.
Chopping the hem off anything is so darn nerve wrecking!!
I was also going through a bit of a fabric covered belt phase, of course I used the excess to have a belt made.
Every outfit this carnival had its own matching belt! Cute!
Trying Different Millinery
A month or two before Spring Carnival, I had been eyeing off Peacock Millinery’s Jinsin and feather turbans which Belinda has been creating. I loveeee them, and was eager to have one of my own, so I contacted her to get one made.
Image: @peacockmillinery
I decided to have one made to match my purple dress for future wears and thought the turban style would be so chic for a future judging gig I had coming up.
Image: @peacockmillinery
When the hat arrived I tried it on with my dress and it was the perfect colour match, they looked amazing together!
The only thing was, the last time I wore this dress I had used clear accessories. Wanting to change up the look, I had purchased an iridescent bag from Zara and iridescent heels from The Iconic.
Image: zara.com
Image: www.theiconic.com.au
Upon trying it with my accessories I felt it didn’t really all mesh together, as the dress and millinery were a matte finish and the iridescent looked a little out of place next to my millinery.
Thinking back to the original hat I had worn with this outfit, I couldn’t help but think that the iridescent flowers made by Lynn at Love Lotus would just finish off the look perfectly.
Image: @lovelotus
I put the flowers onto a base made by Caren Lee that I sprayed purple and added veiling to.
I talk about how I created the original hat in this post. I tried on the original hat with the dress and iridescent accessories and found it flowed a lot better (sorry it’s not the best photo though).
I had to scribble out my face because I was looking very tired and quite scary really haha.
In hindsight, if I’d had more time I would have cut off the flowers from the hat and sewn them (somehow) onto my new turban. But sometimes, with just days to spare, a “stuff it” attitude comes to play and I went with the easier option. I also think I should have opted for a thinner fabric covered belt, but you live and you learn! haha
An Update from the Day
Oaks Day is always such a beautiful day for fashions as it is dubbed Ladies Day. Feminine styling, softer colours and pastels and florals are showcased on this day.
Unfortunately- as I’ve come to expect in Melbourne, we were in store for another rainy, cloudy, cold day!!
I had my hair done by Hair by Rozi who created a beautiful swirly updo.
Having fancy hair is just as fun as having fancy millinery!
I made the preliminary finals on the day.
The FOTF winners were Stephanie Kwong, first runner up Kristy Edwards and second runner up Aleisha Williams.
L-R: Kristy Edwards, Stephanie Kwong and Aleisha Williams.
After a huge week of FOTF, I was exhausted. I retired home to eat my current addiction, green curry and Tom Yum soup!
I literally got this every single day for ten days straight!!
Spring Carnival really does take it out of you, after months and months of planning (and spending hehe help) when it’s all over you feel like you need a mini holiday! And on that note, I’ll be taking the rest of the year off but will continue blogging in January :D Happy holidays everyone and thanks for joining in on my Spring Carnival journey.
If you like seeing how I make my Spring Carnival outfits, you can check out my previous posts where I show you how I made my 2019 Derby Day and Cup Day outfits.
