For two years or so I thought bishop sleeves were costumes. Ones you wore to weddings if you knew you couldn’t really pull it off without something vaguely interesting, so let the sleeve have all the personality and hoped no one looked past your elbow. Wrong. About everything. I’m saying that now so you don’t have to read an entire article just to have me speak to my error.
Firstly a successfully executed bishop sleeve dress isn’t just about a lot of fabric. It’s about the way it gathers, where it hits on your arm, how much extra you want puddling around before it cuffs sharply around your wrist. Catch it too high and you’ll have a stupid puff shoulder that looks like you’ve joined a folk dance group, not spent time thinking about your wardrobe. Those that work allow the extra fullness to hang starting around your elbow, allowing your arms to still appear like arms, not wings ready for you to take flight at any moment.
That cuff is important more than anybody tells you. It really is true that the little details matter; that tight neat band around your wrist does the most work in elevating the whole look from something you stuck together in the basement to an intentional fashion decision.
I love that with a bishop sleeve, that detail is basically doing the interesting thing for you. There’s no need for statement necklace or fun clutch, your sleeves are doing their own talking. Dress everything else physically small. Basic shoes, slim belt to break up the dress if it needs a defined waist, minimal jewellery, perhaps for company one good stud ear-ring and that’s your look done.
Don’t ask me how I learned this, I wore a bishop sleeve dress with a big chunky necklace to a christening once and looked like some sad rent specialized had put me together. Three unhappy stylists with three differing opinions, thrown together like a superhero team but nobody understands nuclear physics.
They’re great for when you want to look like you made some effort but you don’t want to look like you made too much effort. That Works (just kidding, but they’d be great) Long lunches. Christenings. Sundays when you have people over and suddenly it’s “an occasion”. Office things where jeans aren’t appropriate but pants definitely feel like too much. Knee length is obviously your day time stop everything else chin length and made of something heavy and slinky for post 6pm. Cotton versions and poplin are your day time winners, they keep their shape and don’t crease into an unsalvageable mess the second you sit down for lunch for two. Heavy silk, or those gorgeous fluid fabrics are for night time when you want your sleeve to have movement as you’re walking, rather than standing statically like a giant lantern.
My colleague Priya mentioned hers made her feel “like she had somewhere to go” which is great because sometimes she wears hers on a Tuesday when she has nowhere to go at all. That’s it, really. That’s the appeal.
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