I spent about three years thinking a black long sleeve dress was a cop out. The safe choice. The thing you wear when you can’t be bothered to have an opinion about an outfit. I was wrong, and I’m saying that properly, not as a throwaway line, because it took a truly disastrous sequin situation at a January leaving do for me to admit it. The dress that actually worked that night, worn under duress, borrowed, slightly too long, was a plain black long sleeve number that made everyone else’s outfits look like they were trying too hard.
What makes one good has almost nothing to do with how simple it looks and everything to do with the fabric doing the work quietly.
You want something with enough weight that it doesn’t cling in the wrong places when you sit down, but enough give in the sleeve that you can actually lift your arms above your head without the seam threatening you. Ribbed jersey, a proper ponte, a crepe with some structure, that’s the range worth caring about. The ones that go wrong are always the thin, slightly see through ones that need three layers underneath to be decent in public, at which point what’s the point.
Styling one is less about what you add and more about what you’re allowed to leave off. Gold hoops and nothing else for something you actually have to think about. A blazer thrown over the top and boots underneath for the version of you that’s pretending to be busy and important on a Tuesday.
Tights and a proper coat for the version that’s freezing on a platform in February. It takes a belt shockingly well too, better than most dresses do, because there’s nothing fighting with it for attention.
Occasion wise it does more than people give it credit for. Dinner where you haven’t been told the dress code and don’t want to ask. A funeral, unfortunately, where you need something that doesn’t require a second thought on a day already full of them. A date where you want to look like you tried without looking like you spent four hours on it. My colleague Priya once wore the same one to a client pitch in the morning and a gig that night, just swapped the shoes, and told me afterwards nobody clocked it was the same dress. That’s the whole argument, really.
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