Julianne

In my first jumper dress post, I wrote that it is my favourite, but I have to admit that my first thought whenever I’ve come to write about one of the others has been: ‘Oh, this one is my favourite!’. I love all my clothes, what can I say? And I love this dress for so many reasons.

It fits perfectly. The skirt is big enough to spin out around me if I twirl. It’s warm. It’s smart.  And people are always surprised to discover that it’s a dress. It’s an unusual design, this fake-separates look, but I prefer it to real separates because I don’t have to worry about anything coming untucked! It’s also very quick to build into an outfit as I can wear any colour top underneath and don’t need to match top and bottom.

If I remember rightly I bought it in a branch of Oxfam when I was looking for officewear, and it’s served me very well, enabling me to look put together with almost no effort! All it needs is a cardigan on very cold days, and long socks or wooly tights. If I’m feeling fancy I can add a belt and/or a long necklace.

If you’re looking to expand your work wardrobe then I highly recommend charity shopping – you can get much nicer quality items on a lower budget. For all my work wardrobe thrifting tips – plus all my best shopping advice – check out my ecourse Planning Your Work Wardrobe.

What clothes do you find easiest to wear?

I know my wardrobe well enough to put outfits together in my head. I often update my outfit plans while I’m in the shower, or walking home from work. Every now and then I’ll go through the whole process described in Planning Your Work Wardrobe, when I think I need to be more critical, but most of the time, I’ll create outfits without even putting the clothes on. That’s the ideal for me, and I hope all of my students reach that point too.

But sometimes there are items of clothing that you just have to try on in order to put them into great outfits. This dress is one of those items – whenever I try and pair it with other pieces in my head, I am convinced that it is shorter than it actually is. Then when I try on the outfit in reality, it doesn’t work.

I keep imagining that it needs to be worn over skinny jeans or jeggings, but it really doesn’t. It looks wrong. Instead, I’m going to try more outfits in which I wear it over thick tights or socks, like in the photo above. I think it looks great, do you agree?

Here’s a closeup of the button detail on the shoulders, my favourite thing about it: