Vacation Vibes

Sezane cardigan
Rouje dress (similar)
Mumico espadrilles
Mango handbag
Zara sunglasses (similar)
Hart and Stone necklace (c/o) (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

It wasn’t until recently that I started dreaming of a vacation in the South of France. I visited the Cote d’Azur when I was fifteen, but that visit happened in March, which isn’t really the ideal time of year to spend time lounging on the French Riviera. It was pretty, in spots, but it didn’t exactly wow me.

Maybe it’s the fashion world’s ongoing infatuation with all things nineties. Maybe it’s the fact that after seventeen months spent barely leaving home, I’m desperate to vacation anywhere at all and the South of France seems like as good an option as any. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s nostalgia. I didn’t appreciate the Cote d’Azur as a teenager, but when I reminisce about it, I can clearly see how much of the wonder I missed. Whatever the reason, my craving for pebbled beaches, pink hotels and rose got very real earlier this year. Which means I fell hard for the summer collection from Rouje.

Rouje, founded by Parisian it-girl Jeanne Damas, represents a particular kind of French style that I appreciate but that hasn’t ever really felt like me. I admire woman who can walk into a thrift store and leave with a bagful of average old things that look fabulous on them. But I admire them because I know I’m not one of them. There is nothing about thrift shopping that feels effortless to me. I don’t love the thrill of the hunt, mostly because I’m not much of a hunter. In many ways, that makes Rouje ideal for me. All of the pieces, and collections, are inspired by styles that you could easily find in a thrift shop. But they’re new, not one of a kind and easily accessible. Suddenly, I can look like I’m going on a vacation in the South of France, with only the most minimal effort.

Often, I love the idea of something more than the reality of it. I’m a conceptual thinker, and if ideas are well-executed, particularly aesthetic ones, they pull me in. I was already dreaming of a vacation in France when Rouje launched a Marseille-inspired collection. Individually, the pieces would not fit easily into my existing wardrobe. But as a whole, the collection was perfectly curated and hard not to love. Already in imaginary holiday mindset, I fell hard.

It took me weeks to choose my favourite pieces. I made up my mind, hesitated, changed it and then changed it back again. Decision-making doesn’t come easily to me at the best of times. When shopping for a vacation I’m not actually taking, its a lot less simple. In my imagination, this dress was for a day trip to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, or an afternoon in Avignon. But when it arrived, the only place I would have to wear it would be Winnipeg. How could one garment possibly bridge that gap in a logical way?

I was asking too much of this dress. And probably of myself, too.

When I envisionned this outfit, I was wearing it to wander the streets of Avignon, not take a walk to snap photos and pick up bagels here at home. In Avignon, this would be the perfect outfit for a trip to the market and a picnic. Against the warm southern French backdrop, it would make absolute sense. Here at home, it feels like playing dress-up, because that’s exactly what it is. I’m pretending to be on the vacation I’ve been dreaming of, right up to the point of dressing for it, because that’s my only option.

That’s not to say that I don’t love this dress, or the shoes I bought at the same time. I do. But next time I wear them in Winnipeg, I’ll be wearing them in a way that makes sense for Winnipeg, instead of using them to half-heartedly transport myself to somewhere I’d rather be.

…which is not to say that I’m not still dreaming of rose and sunset in South of France, because I most certainly am.

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