The print dress a stranger wore that I had to ask about
At 62, I stopped avoiding print dresses because of this one
Six things the Mischa gets right that print dresses get wrong, from a woman who is not a fashion writer.
Caroline Richards · Customer · Nottinghamshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Caroline, I am 62, I live in Nottinghamshire, and for the best part of twenty years I have swerved anything with a pattern on it. Plain and dark, that was my rule, because every print I ever tried either wore me or aged me. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about print, saying so.
The one I am writing about is called the Mischa, from Nottingham Boutique, a small boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I first saw it on a friend at a garden lunch, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
A leafy green print, at my age. I know. I thought the same, that it would look like the curtains in my nan's front room. Then I got closer and saw how soft it was, and how well she looked in it. Read on.
Here is what twenty years of avoiding print taught me. Print dresses come in two piles. The loud pile, the big busy patterns that wear you and look like furnishing fabric. And the frumpy pile, the timid little sprigs that are meant to be safe and simply add ten years. I had decided plain and dark was the only way to be sure, and I had rather given up on colour and pattern altogether.
A print that wears you, or a print that ages you. Those were the two piles, and I had stopped reaching into either.
The Mischa is the first print dress I have owned that is neither, and having worn it up and down all summer, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I nearly sent the print back on principle, then I held it up to the light.
THE PRINT IS SOFT, NOT LOUD
The pattern is a soft, watercolour sort of leaf print, sage and cream, painterly rather than bold. That is the whole difference. It is a print that looks like you chose well, not a print that walked in ahead of you. Nobody has asked if it is new. They have asked where it is from, which is a different question entirely.
The print up close. Soft and painterly, not a curtain in sight.
A print that looks expensive, not like the curtains. I have had more compliments in this than in anything I own.
Christine B., West BridgfordIT HAS PROPER SLEEVES
It has real short sleeves, not the mean little cap sleeves that leave the tops of the arms on show. They cover the part of my arm I would rather cover, without a cardigan over the top and without cooking me in the warm. A summer dress that covers the arms and still keeps you cool is a rarer thing than it ought to be.
Proper sleeves that cover the tops of my arms. I do not need a cardigan over it and I do not feel bare.
Margaret E., SouthwellIT FALLS LOOSE AND SKIMS THE MIDDLE
Below the shoulders it falls in an easy A-line, so it skims the middle and the hips rather than gripping them. There is a shape to it, but nothing pulls tight and nothing clings when you sit down to your lunch. You look put together and you can still breathe, which is all I have ever really wanted from a dress.
It skims straight over the middle. I can sit down to lunch and not think about it once.
Dorothy S., BeestonIT HAS REAL POCKETS
Proper pockets, in the side seams, deep enough to be useful. My phone goes in one and my glasses in the other, and I have stopped carrying a handbag round the garden and down to the shops. It sounds a small thing to be pleased about. It is not, and once you have had it you resent every dress that does without.
Real pockets, in the side seam. The handbag can stay at home.
Pockets. I keep my phone and my glasses in them and leave the handbag at home.
Pauline H., ArnoldIT IS LIGHT AND EASY TO LIVE IN
It is light as a feather and it does not crease into a rag. I have worn it to a lunch, worn it in the garden, worn it on a warm day out, and it has come up fresh each time with next to no fuss. It is the sort of dress you forget you have on, in the very best way.
Light as a feather and it does not crease. I wore it all day at a garden party and still looked fresh at six.
Eileen T., NewarkIT GOES FROM AN 8 TO A 24, AND DRESSES UP OR DOWN
The sizing runs honestly from an 8 all the way to a 24, so it fits real women rather than only the sample size. Flat sandals and it is a dress for the shops and the garden. A pair of heels and it is perfectly good for a lunch or a christening. It comes in three prints, and I am already tempted by the blue.
On the wardrobe door, ready for whatever the day turns out to be.
I am a 20 and it is genuinely flattering, not a tent. Sandals or heels, it does the lot.
Maureen C., MansfieldThe Mischa, against the print dresses you have been avoiding
You can find a print dress for thirty-odd pounds almost anywhere. I know, because I have avoided most of them. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
A loud, busy print that wears you
Sleeveless, so the arms are on show
Clings at the middle the moment you sit
No pockets, so a bag on your arm all day
Frumpy, or trying far too hard
A soft painterly print that flatters
Proper short sleeves that cover the arms
Flowing shape that skims, never clings
Real side pockets, leave the bag at home
Elegant and easy, from a lunch to a do
About the price
The Mischa is £29.95 at the moment. It was £60.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are clearing the summer stock as the season turns, and once it has gone it is gone until next year. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with a thing, and I have found nothing wrong with this one.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women's words.
Folded for the drawer. It takes up next to no room and does not crease.
If you have a summer of lunches and garden do's and ordinary warm days ahead, and you have quietly given up on print the way I had, this is the dress I would put in your hands myself, while your size is still there. Stop dithering and go and have a look.
Caroline
MISCHA | EFFORTLESS FLORAL MIDI DRESS
- Soft watercolour botanical print that flatters
- Proper short sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
- Flowing A-line midi shape that skims, never clings
- Real side pockets
- Lightweight and easy to wear all day
- Three colourways, UK sizes 8/10 to 22/24
- Free UK delivery and 30 day returns
Summer stock clearing now. The middle sizes go first.