I love my new dress from Mikarose! And it's breastfeeding friendly too! Review and Giveaway

Does anyone else feel like they need a wardrobe update after they have a baby. I’ve gone through this after having each of my sons. The problem is that I have a difficult time finding cute clothes that I can comfortably breastfeed in. Yet another dilemma is that I don’t want to spend a truckload of money on clothes that look like nursing clothes, and that I’m not going to wear once I’m done nursing.

Recently, Mikarose announced they were looking for pregnant or nursing bloggers to review some of their dresses. Having been to a Mikarose store and tried on several of their beautiful, modest dresses when I was pregnant, I excitedly jumped on this opportunity.

In way of a little introduction, here is a bit about Mikarose:

Mikarose is a clothing company that specializes in modest, elegant and fashionable dresses… Our goal is to provide an extensive line of modest dresses, without having to sacrifice style. You will be able to wear our line to a broad range of functions: from everyday events to corporate parties. We hope to not only meet the needs of women looking for modest wear, but all those who are seeking elegant dresses.

Mikarose specializes in stylish, chic, and modest dresses, blouses, and skirts. Though none of their styles are technically made for maternity or nursing wear, the flowing quality of many of dresses, and the cut and style of many of the dress bodices, make Mikarose dresses suitable for both pregnancy and nursing.

Since I’m currently nursing, I browsed their selection looking for modest nursing dresses. Their dresses are so beautiful I really had a difficult time deciding. Here are a few of my favorites:

I love the rosette on the shoulder of this simple Kristy wrap dress.

Love this Ariana polka dot dress!

Finally, I decided on the Serena dress. I envisioned being able to wear this to church as well as occasions that call for fancier dress.

I ordered the Serena dress in Pin Stripe.

When I received the dress the first thing I noticed was that the bodice was sewn with a few stitches where the dress fabric meet at the bottom of the “V”. This helps maintain a modest fit and reduces embarrassing cleavage. 🙂

In order to make this suitable to nurse in I took a seam-ripper and ripped out the few stitches. This allowed the bodice of the dress to open for nursing. However, this also made it so that the bodice revealed much more of my chest than when it had the stitches holding it together. In order to preserve my modesty I had to wear a nursing tank underneath.

I ordered a size small in anticipation of returning to my pre-pregnancy size (4-6). I, however, have yet to return to my pre-pregnancy size and am still hovering at around a size 8. Consequently, the dress fit a bit tighter than it should have if I’d ordered the size I currently am.

My only complaint with the Mikarose Serena dress as a nursing dress is that there needs to be some sort of elastic stitching along the neckline seam. There is no stretch to the stitching making the seam very tight when the top is pulled open for nursing.