The dress three women asked me about at lunch
Forty plus years of holiday dresses and I never wrote a word about one. This is the exception
Six things the Violet gets right that everyday summer 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 I have never once sat down to write about a dress in my life. What I have done is spend forty summers pulling things out of the wardrobe, putting them back, and going out in the same safe navy I always end up in. So this is not a review. It is a woman who kept reaching for the same dress all summer, saying why.
The one I am writing about is called the Violet, 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 plain grey dress. I can hear you from here, because I said the same to my friend Sue. A grey sack, I thought, that will do nothing for me. Read on.
Here is what forty summers taught me. Everyday dresses for warm weather come in two piles. The shapeless pile, the kaftans and the sacks, which are comfortable enough but make you look like you have given up. And the fussy pile, the fitted day dresses that dig in at the waist and cling the moment it is warm, and you spend the afternoon pulling them off your back. I have owned plenty from both piles and never once felt right in either.
A shapeless sack, or something that clings the minute it warms up. Those were my two options, and I had done my years in both.
The Violet is the first everyday dress I have owned that is neither, and having worn it half the days this summer, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I nearly sent the grey back on principle, then I tried it on.
THE RUFFLE AT THE NECK DOES THE DRESSING FOR YOU
The grey I will deal with first, because it was my objection too. What changes it is the neckline. There is a soft ruffle that runs down the V at the front, and it frames your face and draws the eye up, so the dress looks finished before you have added a single thing. No necklace, no brooch, no fiddling. I put it on and I look done, which at my age in the morning is the whole battle.
The ruffle down the V. It does the decorating so you do not have to.
The ruffle does all the work. I put it on and look like I have made an effort, with no jewellery and no fuss.
Christine B., West BridgfordTHE LITTLE SLEEVES COVER THE TOPS OF THE ARMS
The sleeves are a soft flutter over the shoulder, so the tops of the arms are covered without a stitch of heat. That was the thing I never got right. My other summer dresses are either sleeveless, so I carry a cardigan I never take off, or long-sleeved and far too warm. This is the in-between I had stopped believing existed.
Covers the tops of my arms and I have stopped reaching for a cardigan in July. Just right.
Margaret E., SouthwellIT FALLS LOOSE AND SKIMS THE MIDDLE
Below the shoulders it falls straight and loose, so it skims the middle and the hips and everything else you would rather it did not report on. There is a shape to it, but nothing squeezes to make it, and nothing clings. You can eat your lunch and go back for pudding, and the dress simply carries on.
It skims straight over the middle. Shaped enough to look like a proper dress, loose enough to eat lunch in.
Dorothy S., BeestonIT HAS REAL POCKETS
Proper pockets, in the side seams, deep enough to be useful. I know that sounds a small thing to be pleased about. It is not. 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. Once you have had a dress with pockets you resent every one that does not.
Real pockets, in the side seam. Phone in one, glasses in the other.
Pockets. Actual pockets. My phone and my glasses, and I have stopped taking a bag to the shops.
Pauline H., ArnoldIT IS LIGHT AND COOL ON A WARM DAY
It is light as anything, a soft linen sort of feel, and it wears cool. On the hot days in July it did not stick to me the way my other dresses do, and it did not crease into a rag by teatime either. It is the first summer dress I have owned that is genuinely comfortable when it is genuinely warm.
Light as anything and cool in the heat. It does not cling the way my other summer dresses do.
Eileen T., NewarkONE SHAPE, NINE COLOURS, AND IT GOES ANYWHERE
Flat sandals and it is a dress for the shops and the garden. A pair of nicer shoes and a wrap and it is perfectly good for a lunch or a wedding. Same dress, two jobs, and it comes in nine colours so you can have the grey like mine or something braver. The sizing runs honestly from an 8 to an 18. I have the grey. I am already eyeing the green.
On the wardrobe door, ready for whatever the day turns out to be.
Sandals for the shops, nicer shoes and a wrap for a wedding. Same dress, and no one could tell.
Maureen C., BinghamThe Violet, against the summer dresses you have been buying
You can find a long summer dress for forty-odd pounds almost anywhere. I know, because I have a drawer full of them, each one worn a handful of times. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
A shapeless sack, or fitted and clingy
Bare arms you keep covering with a cardigan
No pockets, so a bag everywhere you go
One occasion, then it hangs unworn
Needs jewellery and fuss to look finished
Loose shape that skims, never clings
Soft flutter sleeves that cover the arms
Real side pockets, leave the bag at home
Dressed up or down, worn all week
The ruffle finishes it, no jewellery needed
About the price
The Violet is £32.95 at the moment. It was £66.00.
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.
If you have a summer of lunches and garden do's and ordinary mornings ahead, and you have done your years in the two piles, 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
VIOLET | RUFFLE V-NECK MAXI DRESS
- Soft ruffle V-neckline that frames the face
- Flutter cap sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
- Loose flowing maxi shape that skims, never clings
- Real side pockets
- Lightweight linen feel, cool on a warm day
- Nine colours, UK sizes 8/10 to 16/18
- Free UK delivery and 30 day returns
Summer stock clearing now. The middle sizes go first.