Effortless Sophistication

I love the short-sleeved version shown here, especially with that hat. What kills me, though, is that I can't think of any modern equivalent to a dress like this. What does a woman wear these days that is so simple and yet so un-girlish? Low-rise jeans? Please.

I'm thinking about this as today is my 35th birthday (yay!) and, even though I'm glad that I can just toss on a pair of sneakers and jeans any time I so choose, there's not an equivalent freedom further up the scale. Why is there this big gap now, where people are either wearing jeans or a cocktail dress (or, actually, jeans and a top that looks like the top of a cocktail dress, instead of the cocktail dress)? Where did all the intermediate stages go? (I mean, besides my closet.) It is a puzzlement, to be sure.

Anyway, now that I've achieved ostensible maturity, I plan on wearing a LOT more dresses like this, to fill in the gap. I also plan on doing these things: calling people "my dear boy"; saying "in MY day, a lady wouldn't be caught DEAD in that"; and indulging in completely unwarranted nostalgia for the mid-to-late 1980s.