Displacement activity - helm me find a dress suitable for a 12yo bridesmaid in grey, brown or black, available in France or UK

[castille]

Am supposed to be making a very important decision about schools but while I'm waiting for teacher to call back (could be tomorrow) I have this much more important trivial thing to do.

DD1 will be 12 on the wedding day, tall and slim, and is quite conscious of looks and fashion. She's has never been a pink and frilly sort and was relieved when the bride said she wanted a dark/muted colour for her bridesmaids. Preferably not a full skirt + sash type dress but something more grown up.

Other bridesmaids will be 3, 8 and 10.

I'm struggling.

When's it for - what sort of climate?

Late Spring in the UK

Which could mean any weather at all

Spring 2010?

yes

Gosh . I think I'd wait and take a look at S/S 2010 collections next February! You are early off the mark.

Could you browse Milk Magazine and Little Fashion Gallery (which now has a teens section) for inspiration? Bonpoint has a teens range too, YAM - in fact, the store is 10 minutes walk down my road!

Oh I know it's too soon, but I have instructions from the bride who is in the antipodes and is only visiting once, in July/Aug, before the wedding. She wants me to do research before she comes over.

Tis not easy!

Didn't know Bonpoint did teens, that might be a good place to look.

The fact that she is in the Antipodes explains a lot about the fact that she hasn't got a clue about seasons and sales in Europe!

Why don't you tell her that you will come to Paris with your DD in February 2010 when all the lovely new clothes will be just in and that your cyberfriend BonsoirAnna will take you shopping to all the right shops?

www.monsoon.co.uk/invt/45816720&bklist=icat,5,shop,children,girl,girldresses grey monsoon dress?]]

mink?

bhs?

Ah now that would be good

Which shops are worth a look?

Thanks meep. I saw those two Monsoon ones, I liked the 2nd one but it didn't get DD's approval ("too sparkly")

BHS one no good - too bridesmaidy

If I were looking for bridesmaids' dresses, I would go to the Bonpoint flagship store on rue de Tournon (the one that Michelle Obama and her girls went to recently) where they have the whole collection, loads of stock and a huge room devoted to party wear. I would also go to Le Bon Marché children's department which has zillions of children's designer clothes at all sorts of price points - you could try on a lot there, just to get ideas, and they are very nice and won't mind a bit if you try on and don't buy. And then, based on what I had seen there, I might go to the flagship store of the brands I liked best.

Michelle Obama's budget might be a little, um, looser than ours

But there's no harm in looking, surely...

You don't have to buy the whole shop . I generally think that Bonpoint is a safe bet when trying to reach a consensus between adults and children and different cultures - I even manage to reach consensus between me, DD and MOL in there!

Something like this?
www.alfredangelounitedkingdom.com/Collections/ProductDisplay.aspx?productID=8a33adcc-c2c5-4d07-b74a- a708f0c99237&categoryID=3802fa9c-39d0-4b7f-b1c6-9bd0411741f2&pg=0

Not sure what your budget is though?

Some of those are lovely, smurfgirl. Budget a bit of an unknown at the moment but under £100 per dress, definitely

I'd love to browse Bonpoint, Anna, I do like their things. There's a family at DD2's school that go to Paris once a season to buy clothes for all of their 5 children from Bonpoint(no branch her, sadly) and they are always impeccably dressed. Goodness knows how much they spend in there!