Dôen Haul

All the dresses I ordered for sightseeing in Europe served with a side of styling advice.

We leave for Europe in less than three months and my planning is in full swing. I’ve booked almost all of our reservations and have a big itinerary going so now I have a great idea of what I’ll need to wear. When outfit planning and packing for my entire family, I like to start with my own wardrobe and then build Chris and the kids looks around mine.

When Chris turned 40 two summers ago, I was just coming off the first year post partum with Felix (they literally share the same birthday week). I was seriously crazy about my diet and struggling with no taste or smell after a bad bout of Covid so I was svelte (for me). I had been saving a Dôen dress for over a year that was my motivation dress for losing the baby weight. When I put it on that day, I felt like a gazillion bucks. Like all my hard work had paid off. And the feeling and self confidence cemented the dress as one of my all time favorites (ever).

So I’ve already decided that I will wear it for my own 40th in Portugal. Because it carries a little magic for me. And it’s blue and white and screams “wear me in Portugal” so that’s a no brainer.

Celebrating Chris turning 40 in Leland with our families. This dress will forever remind me of this beautiful night. This is also a great example of how I use color to coordinate all five of us.

But despite having the dress I want to wear for my birthday, I still was feeling the itch for a new Doên dress for the trip. I have many Natalie Martin Fiore dresses that I’ll be taking as well but the Doên dresses always feel a little more special because I don’t typically wear them as part of my daily uniform. So I set out to find a new Dôen dress that would be a special for this trip, but that was actually versatile enough for me to wear in several places and ways.

I started off by ordering from Dôen and Net-a-Porter because their offerings are the most expansive and I know their return policies are solid. Since I was specifically over ordering, I needed to make sure the places I ordered from were accommodating to returns. Then I quickly gathered all the Dôen tears I’ve been collecting over the last several months to inform what I wanted to try.

The inspo pulls that inspired my purchases. Remember, we are intentionally shopping in 2025. Spending the time to gather inspiration and have the itinerary of the trip drafted, informs a successful purchase.

By Friday, everything had arrived and I spent two hours trying on everything.

An important note at this stage of the process: It seems the general perspective of effortless style is that it is indeed effortless. That couldn’t be further from the truth of stylish people. Stylish people spend a lot of time thinking, strategizing and compiling their clothes, accessories, purchases and then they also spend a lot of time styling their clothes. Along these lines, one important step that I find often gets skipped is not taking the time to style a purchase when you’re first trying it on. One of the beauties of ordering online, is that you have your full closet to work with when the item arrives. Take the time to style the new piece with your wardrobe staples. If you can’t style it, then you may have ordered something outside of your norm, and it should probably go back. If you have to buy all new accessories to work with the new dress, also a red flag. We are trying to find something that works with our wardrobe - not something that then triggers several more purchases to make it work (another red flag).

Ok so back to the haul, here’s how every dress I ordered looked fully styled for how I would wear it sightseeing in Paris. The best dress would be something that could be worn with sneakers to explore Paris all day with three children in tow. And would also work styled as a beach-y vibe once we get to Portugal.

Dôen Try On

As always with these types of exercises, I was surprised by what I liked. I had been hoping to have this white dress work for months. It was on my Europe vision board, and has been sitting in my tears folder for over a year. But of course once I had it on, it felt way too Bridgerton/nightgown for me. I thought an all black dress would be great for its practicality since I’ll be with the boys but as always, black is just not flattering to my hair or skin tone. It does nothing for my features (which is why you see me wear it so infrequently). I knew the printed dresses would be a love because I just always love a printed dress. But I was happily surprised that I loved the dress with the smocked quarter length sleeves as much as I did.

The dress I’m actually keeping and very excited about is this one:

This dress was so flattering, very comfortable and made me feel amazing just like my original dress that inspired the exercise! Win!

From there, I was able to build out my entire trip’s key looks and palette! The dress was truly the missing link. Everything else fell into place shortly after finding it.

The palette for the trip.

The yellow cable knit cardigan was also a great find but after looking at it on in my videos over the weekend, I decided it’s going back. The part I love most is the color, but the fit was just not right for me. It’s a cropped/slimmer fit and I just prefer a slouchy sweater. And since buttery yellow is a very on trend color, I’d prefer it in a more summery cotton blend like this one from La Ligne or get a more classic cashmere crew. So my hunt for a buttery yellow knit continues!

The style board of my dreams. You can find all the items here.

Stay tuned on IG tomorrow night for the reel of all the Dôen dresses before I send them back.

Talk soon xx