Style Guide

New Year's Eve Dresses That Sparkle All Night Long
A New Year's Eve dress has one job that most party dresses do not: it has to last until well after midnight. Read more...
What to Wear to a Christmas Party, Formal or Not
December brings three completely different parties and one wardrobe. Here is how to read each one, and the pieces that carry all of them. December is the only month that asks you to dress for three different rooms in the space of two weeks, and it rarely tells you which is which. There is the office party, which is a work event in party clothes. There is the family evening, which is warm and long and involves cooking. And there is the night out with friends, which is the only... Read more...
What to Wear to a Sweet Sixteen: Pretty Picks for Guests & the Birthday Girl
A sweet sixteen is a party with a little ceremony in it. Dressing for one is mostly about knowing which of those two the night is going to be. Read more...
What to Wear for Engagement Photos: Colors, Textures and What to Skip
Engagement photographs outlive almost everything else from the season. Here is how to choose an outfit you will still love looking at. Engagement photographs have an unusual job. They go on a wedding website, into a save the date, onto a wall, and then into a box that gets opened every few years for the rest of your life. Which means the outfit has a longer life than almost anything else you will buy for the wedding, and it is worth ten minutes of thinking rather than a decision made... Read more...
What Does Formal Wear Actually Mean? A Plain Guide to the Dress Codes
Formal is the word that appears on invitations most often and gets explained least. Here is what it means, and how it sits against every code near it. Formal wear is one of those phrases everybody uses and almost nobody defines. It turns up on wedding invitations, work invitations, awards evenings, graduations and charity dinners, and it means something slightly different in each of them. Underneath, though, there is a single idea, and once you have it the whole ladder of dress codes makes sense at a glance. Formal wear... Read more...
What to Wear to a Formal Wedding When the Invitation Says Black Tie
Black tie is the clearest dress code there is, and the one people most often talk themselves out of. Here is exactly what it asks for. Of all the dress codes on a wedding invitation, black tie is the least ambiguous. It asks for a floor-length gown in an evening fabric, with proper jewelry and a heel. And yet it is the code that produces the most hesitation, because it sounds like it belongs to somebody else's life. It does not. It is simply an instruction about length and fabric,... Read more...
What to Wear to a Baby Shower, as a Guest or the Guest of Honor
Baby showers are daytime, warm and full of photographs. Here is how to dress for one, whether you are a guest or the person everyone is there for. A baby shower is one of the few occasions with no written dress code at all, which makes it quietly harder to dress for than a wedding. Nobody tells you what to wear, and yet everybody has a sense of what would be wrong. The good news is that the event itself is generous. It is daytime, it is usually indoors or... Read more...
What to Wear to a Rehearsal Dinner, Whoever You Are That Night
A rehearsal dinner is the softest evening of the whole wedding weekend. Here is how to dress for it, whichever part of the room you are standing in. The rehearsal dinner is the loveliest event of a wedding weekend and the one nobody explains. It is smaller than the wedding, warmer than the wedding, and the only evening where everyone in the room already knows each other. It is also the evening where the dress code is almost never written down, which is why so many people arrive either slightly... Read more...
Plus Size Wedding Guest Dresses: What to Wear and What to Skip
A wedding is a long day in one dress. Here is how to choose one that answers the code and is still comfortable at eleven at night. A wedding asks more of a dress than almost any other occasion. You will wear it for ten hours. You will sit through a ceremony, stand through a drinks reception, sit again for a long dinner, and then dance in it. Most guides talk about the dress code and stop. The code matters, and so does the ten hours, and the second part... Read more...
Plus Size Cocktail Dresses for Every Kind of Evening
Cocktail is the dress code that appears most and explains itself least. Here is what it asks for, and the shapes that answer it beautifully. Cocktail turns up on more invitations than any other dress code, and it is the one that sends most people straight to a group chat. Long or short. How formal is formal. Is black fine. The answers are simpler than the worry suggests, and once you have them the code becomes genuinely useful rather than a thing to solve. What Cocktail Means A cocktail dress... Read more...
The Wrap Dress: How One Feminine Design Became a Wardrobe Staple
No zip, no buttons, no fastening you have to reach behind you for. The wrap dress has been quietly solving the same problem for fifty years. Read more...
What to Wear to a Wedding: A Guest's Guide to Every Dress Code
Wedding invitations rarely explain themselves. Here is what each dress code is actually asking for, and how to answer it in something you will love wearing. There is a particular kind of quiet panic that arrives with a wedding invitation. The date is lovely. The venue looks beautiful. And then, in small letters at the bottom, two words that could mean almost anything. Garden party. Semi-formal. Festive. Beach formal. Black tie optional. Every one of them is a real instruction, and every one of them is answerable. You just need... Read more...
What to Wear With an Evening Gown: Gloves, Wraps & the Perfect Earrings
A gown is only ever half the outfit. The other half is four or five small decisions, and they are the ones people actually notice. Read more...
Long Sleeve Dress Styles to Fall in Love With This Season
When the mornings turn, a long sleeve dress becomes the simplest thing in the wardrobe. One piece, no layering, and you are ready. Read more...
Wedding Reception Dresses Under $60 That Look Like a Million Bucks
Nobody at a wedding can tell what your dress cost. They can tell whether it fits, and whether the fabric moves. Those are the two things to spend on. Read more...
Cocktail Dress Shapes: A Pretty Guide to Finding Your Perfect Style
Cocktail is the most common dress code and the least explained. Here is what it means, and which shapes answer it. Read more...