A Lady in Tuscany

When I was daydreaming about going to Tuscany way back in June, I pictured this perfect moment, in fact I created a board on Pinterest called "A Lady in Tuscany" filled with style inspiration from the Duchess of Windsor, Fuchsia and feminine silhouettes of cropped sleeves and knee length dresses, cinched in at the waist.

So when we drove past the Verrazzano Castle I knew I had found the backdrop for this moment, the ideal place to wear my custom tailored DressMavens.com dress and live out my little fantasy. After all, if you don't create the memories you want to have ...no one will do it for you!

The Reason I Dressed

The Verrazzano Castle in the Greve in Chianti hills of Tuscany is a major tourist and local attraction, but at the time my husband and I stumbled upon it I had never heard of it before! We were driving in the rain trying to get our little man to fall asleep in the backseat when we came across a huge driveway leading up a manicured hill to a Castle perched on top with a sign that read something like "Wine Tastings, Tours and an Agriturismo".

I booked a dinner for four adults and three children, including a Castle Tour, aperitivo, concert and 5 course dinner for Friday evening when we would be joined by my sister and her family who stayed with us in Tuscany. We paid something like 60 euro a person and the dinner included a wine pairing with each course, online you can actually find all of their tour, lunch and dinner options here.

The experience overall was wonderful and fairly well organized. An English tour guide lead the first session followed by another guide for the Italians, after the tour there was a cocktail reception overlooking the vineyards.

All of the families with young kids forewent the hour long concert to start their 5 course dinner early, which in should have been great for the couples that stayed for the concert, so that when the concert was over and the childless diners started eating, the families with kids *should* have almost been done dining. But it didn't quite workout that way and we ended up having the longest dinner EVER...I think we were there for almost 3 hours! We almost skipped dessert because we were so tired, although I really appreciated the fact that kids of all ages were WELCOME and it could have b een great for both groups. We were there until almost midnight eating, I think the group that ate after the concert was there until 1 am!!

Instead of dwelling on that, I'll remember how delicious the food was, how perfect the wine and ambiance was and how the gardens made me feel like royalty!

What I Wore

Last week I introduced you to the online brand Dress Mavens. They offer custom made dresses for professional women looking for something luxurious that fits perfectly, no matter your shape. I was so happy to partner with them because I wanted to share the experience of having "the perfect dress" with my sister, and you can see and read all about her dress and the ordering process here.

I'm under 5 feet tall actually I'm 4′ 10″ (150cm) to be precise and you can't imagine how difficult it is to find a dress that fits, so when they offered me a dress of my own I jumped at the chance! All ready made dresses always bunch in the back because the waist is always too long on me and "midi" length quickly turns to an ankle length on me (case in point here!). Not only am I extremely petite, but at just over 100lbs I'm actually curvy, a combination that makes dress shopping impossible. My tailor in Italy calls me "una finta magra" meaning "a fake skinny girl" because I have hips and major thighs and all kinds of areas to grab hold of.

Lately I've been obsessed with Dolce and Gabbana. Maybe it's because I follow Stefano Gabanno on Instagram, maybe it's because a few years ago I fell in love with their muse and long time model Bianca Balti, or perhaps because their clothing is incredible and I can tell they love the shape of women.

Their collections are filled with form-fitting A-line dresses , flared skirts that fall above the knee and short sleeves. *swoon* But alas, at close to $3,000 A DRESS I don't think I would go there even if I had the budget! So through DressMavens I recreated my dream dress, using their " Emily " dress as a base. I specified the color "Cotton Cashmere in Watermelon", the hem length and the 3/4 length sleeve that I then had shortened two inches by my tailor for 6 euro! And voilà!

I felt so pretty!

Fuchsia for Fall

This color POPPED! Their site doesn't do this color justice, I received SO MANY compliments on the color and THANK YOU to my readers who helped me choose by voting on my Facebook Page!

One of the colors that is trending for this Fall and that will continue right through to SS2016 is Fuchsia. They may call it "Ultra Pink", "Cerise", "Cabaret", "Watermelon" or "Raspberry" but it is all the same thing... a rich, deep fuchsia and I've pinned a few of the color trending boards to my Pinterest board to inspire you.

I paired the dress with a matching mint python belt and bag made by my husband and my new leather slanted cowboy heels you can read about in my "Shoe Haul" post ....they were a steal!

I was worried about being bold, but in the end I could not have been more happy with this dress, the scenery and the wonderful evening of delicious food, good wine and the best company. This evening was everything I wanted it to be.

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