Side Order: Easy Summer Dresses
20 breezy dresses (some on sale!) sourced from just about everywhere
Welcome to the second edition of SIDE ORDER, a monthly newsletter dedicated to your pressing shopping requests. I got a lottt of asks for this month’s topic: EASY SUMMER DRESSES.
I love a good dress, and I’ve had my fair share of dress phases over the years: the mini dress à la 2014 Alexa Chung phase, the patterned midi with sneakers phase (thanks to the Scandinavian influencers), and the pre-pandemic prairie dress phase, to name a few. Right now I’m in my easy phase — I want things I can style in a bunch of ways that aren’t just for fun dinners or for throwing over a swimsuit. As I find myself gravitating towards a more neutral color palette, I’m looking for bases that I can wear over and over, switching out my shoes or jewelry or a hat or a bag to mix it up.
Dresses are hard, though — I sometimes feel like I’m wearing a nightgown (well, sometimes I AM wearing a nightgown) and because you’ve only got one piece of clothing to work with it can feel a little…flat. But I also don’t want a single item of mine to work too hard for me, so while the list below isn’t the most *exciting* group of clothing out there, they are things that I would wear from day to night, at home or on vacation, down city streets and country roads alike.
Before we get into it I wanted to share my criteria for what makes something “easy”. What might be easy to one person might not be for another, and we all have different bodies and preferences, but in the spirit of not just showing you a million t-shirt dresses I outlined some of my own rules:
It doesn’t require special underwear (for the most part). Depending on your comfort level you might want to add a slip or wear a strapless bra, so do you! But I’m talking no backless bras or sticky boobs or anything tricky.
It isn’t fussy. It doesn’t have a bunch of ties and straps or a neckline that could go seriously awry. No open backs or dramatic side panels or anything that would make you very aware that you are wearing it.
It has to look just as good with basic black flip flops as it does with a statement shoe. If you can only wear this one way, it is no longer easy.
And lastly, I wanted to be able to say I would genuinely wear any of the things I included, which means that some great brands that have great options but only in lime green or loud prints didn’t make the list. This is my newsletter, after all.
Okay, without further ado, the assortment!
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