Nautical Summer Dressing (and a sneaky 10% discount)

It is Summer, I promise.

Even though it’s raining it’s still generally warm enough to leave off the stockings or tights and wear short sleeves. Dressing for the British Summer is one of life’s perennial challenges, so today I’m sharing one of my dressed down outfits. Outfits with a vaguely nautical twist are ideal for the British Summer as they look great when the  sun shines, but water is their natural home when it rains.

❤ Breton Striped T Shirt- Kids T bought at the SS Great Britain ❤
❤ Skirt – Laura Ashley Via a Charity Shop ❤Shoes – c/o Chatham ❤

You can tell it’s dressed down as I’m wearing my glasses! I wear contact lenses that you sleep in for an entire month, but I always take a few days rest every month before putting in a new pair and this is one of those days. I really dislike myself in glasses, but it has to be done!

Here I am in the glamorous surroundings of Blue Water shopping centre, which was as close as I can get to actual water apart from the stuff falling from the sky.

Nautical styles look amazing with red lipstick, but on more dressed down days I like to wear Besame Dusty Rose for a bit of colour without the maintenance.

Now, onto the shoes! They are deck shoes and were sent to me by Chatham. I had fantasies of taking them to the beach for fun few hours playing at being all Nautical, but unfortunately it’s mostly rained constantly since I got them.

Deck shoes are a good classic style, dating back to 1935 when designer Paul Sperry created them as a non slip shoe to wear on board ship. The advantage of being deck shoes is they deal well with water, of which we have a LOT at the moment. They’re sturdier than ballet pumps and made of nice breathable leather instead of cheap plastic, so they’re great shoes for when you don’t want to wear socks or stockings.

These ones are the Atlantis style in Navy and they cost a very reasonable for leather shoes £49 a pair. Chatham, however, have kindly offered you all 10% off using the code RETRO10 , just for being lovely readers of my blog.

I highly recommend them for Summer, though, like any shoes, remember to wear them in gently a few times before attempting a 45 minute high speed race into town because you’re late for a meeting. I speak from experience!