Reviews: Party on, dresses

Party season is upon us. Between work, friends and even holiday bashes I’ve finally got occasions to wear the nicer dresses I own. Even though I own plenty of party frocks I find myself wanting something new and so the try-ons begin.

Party or not I wanted to give the Jacquard Gala Dress ($228) a shot. Part of the Mise en Scene by Ruffian collaboration, it’s one of two items featuring this spectacular Jacquard. The Tie-and-Tails Jacket ($198) is the other. The quality was there. Beautiful stitch work, a smooth silk lining attention to detail at the seams were all evident. I tried on my true size 6 and had no issues zipping it up.

The dress is appropriately stiff and as you can see one of the pleats unfortunately got pushed out of whack due to being squeezed into a full rack. I can assure you that’s not how the dress is meant to sit. At 30″ long this is a pretty short dress though it’s full enough that the length wasn’t an issue to me.

What was an issue is how short the torso is. I pay huge compliments to Ruffian that the bodice fit my chest fine. In fact I think it holds me well without making me look like I’m all chest. It’s padded and pretty forgiving to both small and large chests. The waist sat above my natural waist though and the result wasn’t very flattering. This could possibly be resolved by wearing a wide belt to push the skirt down a bit. Despite my issues I love this dress and heartily recommend it.

Bailey 44 gave me better luck with their A Thousand Tiers Dress ($188). It’s awesome how they took basic grey jersey, spiced it up with chiffon shoulders and irregular ruffles and made one fun frock. When I grabbed it from the rack I was unsure of how it would look. I grabbed both a medium and a large. The medium is what you see above and I think it looks pretty good.

The chiffon shoulders are wonderful. You can pull them down over your shoulders though I chose to leave them up. You can create your own line and I like it! Another cool touch is that the top ruffle is longer in front than in back. This is great because if you have a larger chest you can wear it frontwards for balance but if your chest is smaller you can wear the dress backwards easily for the most flattering silhouette.

The dress hugs my curves in a graceful way and at 37″ the dress hit me mid-knee. Can you tell I’m in love? I’m not so in love with the price. Added to the wish list for now.

I thought the Efflorescent Dress ($188) by Johnny Was would be fun for fall parties. I was hoping for the dress to look similar to the model shot shown at the top of this post but instead it looked closer to the product shot on the dress form. I sized down to a small and that was still pretty roomy on me. The tieback created lovely curves in an empire fashion. It was the skirt portion I didn’t really like.

The dress is made of easy silk that felt nice. But the bottom hem was either making me look too wide or looked tapered itself and neither created a shape I loved. In spite of my misgivings I think this dress has a shape that is going to flatter most people. It didn’t work for me but that shouldn’t stop you from giving it a shot.

I admit $118 is more than I’d want to pay for a slip. My hope was that the Cotillion Slip ($118) would work as a dress…maybe with a cardigan or jacket over it? I’ve been waiting for it to hit stores for what seems like months and I finally spotted it over the weekend. Goldenmeans reviewed it and found it to run small in the chest — an observation I second. That meant I had to size up to a medium and it left me with a lot of room everywhere else in the dress, as you can see in the photos above.

If I buy this slip/dress, I would probably buy a small and have the bust let out a touch. I found the slip to be a bit sheer but I adore the pattern. It feels like a slip — not as luxe as a finished silk dress. I know someone out there will rock this for day and evening though.