Joanna in the the throws of illustration passion
Writer, illustrator and author of quirky travel blog-Â http://www.badaude.typepad.com/ , Badaude has received international acclaim for her work, having appeared in numerous publications including The Guardian, The Economist, and The New York Times. She is currently Paris editor of Stylebible, as well as drawing a weekly column at the Times. Â Look out for her latest publication in collaboration with the Tate and upcoming exhibitions in 2011.
Here Badaude chats dress love affairs, disasters, periods of dress torture (the latter, Â she attributes to her auntie), and reveals to us her ‘coup de foudre’ dress
You first ever dress was: a bridesmaids’ dress aged 4 in cherry-pink satin which I wore for my aunt’s wedding when I was four. It came with a winter wedding faux-fur white cape and I loved everything about it. The only trouble was that another of my aunts decided on a reprise some years later and kitted me and my cousins out in almost identical cherry-pink satin numbers (with a little more cleavage). Sadly she didn’t realise that what looks good on a 4-year-old doesn’t necessarily suit a 24-year-old.
Your oldest dress: Though I’m not a hoarder I still have the first cherry-pink satin dress. But not the second.
Your most expensive dress: A black Preen bandage dress with a puff over the hips and a highly visible zip right down the back. It takes about half an hour to get into it (and two seconds to get out of it, which may be the point) but it does amazing things to my body and is well worth it.
Seen the most dancefloors: An Isabel Marant cream shirt-dress with a subtle silver lurex stripe: great to wear under my See by Chloe cropped tuxedo jacket. Oddly, I also wear it a lot as a beach cover-up.
Favourite dress: isn’t any more. I spilt paprika-spiked tapas on in in Seville last week. It was an APC shirtdress. Shirtdresses are genius. You can pack 10 different dresses and it’s lighter than carrying 10 t-shirts.
What was the last event you wore a dress to and what did you wear? 3.1 Phillip Lim dress to a wedding: layers of navy chiffon with tiny flowers in a really simple tunic shape with a high slash neck. I wore it with basic thong flat sandals and black eyeliner.I’d just watched Spartacus and decided to call it my Tony Curtis look.
Mini or Maxi? Mini. If I wear maxi I look like a roll of carpet. Especially in Pucci.
Who are your red carpet idols? Who always gets it right? Clemence Poesy, Sofia Coppola, Emmanuelle Beart, Lou Doillon (can you tell I spend a lot of time in Paris?). And I’d love to look like Jean Seaberg in the black tutu-skirt cocktail dress she wears at the beginning of the movie, Bonjour Tristesse.
Chloe black volume dress
What is your most memorable dress moment? Usually spilling something on one of them disastrously: not the best memories but, like the stains, they do tend to stick… OK maybe trying on a slate grey cocktail dress in the Vanessa Bruno boutique in rue Saint Sulpice in Paris. As I came out of the changing room, a girl came out of the next-door ‘cabine’ wearing exactly the same strapless layered dress but in white. We both thought we looked so fantastic that I bought it to wear as a wedding guest and she ended up buying it to wear for her own wedding.
Which dress would be top of your Girl Meets Dress lust list? It’s not my size but I’ve fallen in love with the Chloe Volume Gown.
As someone who always has a new event to attend – how would Girl Meets Dress hire complement your life? Dresses are Cinderella objects – more than any other piece of clothing they can transform your perception of yourself. So, although I know my everyday style and seldom deviate, an ‘occasion’ dress is one time I’m happy to experiment. Renting a dress from GMD  means I can let go and experiment: so let’s go with an Elizabeth-Hurley-style Versus safety-pin dress or maybe a Halston Heritage gold lame gown.
Designer A-Z 
