Lands’ End Mommy Bloggers Challenge – Style on the School Run

I’ve become a huge fan of Lands’ End since I attended their A/W 2012 press day and fell in love with their English Heritage based range. So when I was asked if I wanted to take part in Style on the School Run project I was very excited. The brief of the project was simple, to chose a dress from the current Lands’ End Collection that could be worn on the school run allowing you to strike the correct balance between style and comfort. As I have a three -year old and have just started doing the school run this month, I was really intrigued with this project, and namely the question of whether a mom can look fabulous on the school run without resorting to full-on glamour.

The whole dress collection is just gorgeous, but I had fallen in love with a particular dress at the press day, so knew immediately which one I would chose.  The floral Georgette ruffle dress was a gorgeous mixture of berry and mustard shades in a vintage style floral print. Although semi sheer, a coordinating under slip means that your modesty is all preserved, leaving you with a 1940s chic dress that is wearable in so many occasions – including the school run.

I think this dress strikes the perfect balance between style and comfort on the school run/working weekday morning. The dress is super elegant, without showing acres of flesh – cap sleeves, great knee length, and that underlayer to save your blushes. It is also a fabulous colour which can be matched to so many other shades, and is also great camouflage when your three-year old brushes a rather dirty hand across the skirt (yes, it happened!) But although this dress looks very pretty, it is far from impractical. It can literally be pulled over the head in the morning, no fiddly zips to be dealing with, whilst it has slight waist elastication at the sides which gives you a wonderfully cinched in look, and is also great for those slightly bloated mornings. It has a great tie waist belt, but this is removable so you could create a very different look by adding a thicker leather belt. And I love that this dress is smart enough to take you to the office or an important appointment just by the addtional of heels and a black or plum blazer.

So, how did I style the dress? The fabulous aubergine shades means that plums and purples just look fabulous with this. I wore this dress on a rather gorgeous autumn day, so I left the tights off, but will be adding some cute burgundy knit tights come the cooler days. For shoes I wanted to tie into the 1940s feel by adding a plum leather t-bar shoe from Office. A Cynthia Rowley knit I picked up in a charity shop provided the perfect cover-up. I also added a cute Downton Abbey style hat in a nod to all the fabulous head-wear that has emerged this season thanks to Marc Jacobs.

I truly love this dress, and can’t wait to wear it again. I’m thinking of adding a chunky knit jumper over the top to give it a Land Girl style finish. or adding a neat blazer to wear this for Fashion Days out.  Versatile, pretty and totally wearable, this dress will certainly earn its keep in my wardrobe – top marks.

Visit Lands’ End to view the full range of fabulous dresses.

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