Maxi Dresses S/S 08

[daniellat]

here is mine

gorgeous!

 

[shopsmuch]

i really like the maxi dress but hadn't bought one yet (basically couldn't afford to, as i refuse to buy throwaway clothes and purchase quality over quantity...stupid expensive college tuition ). but i just bought this Manoush dress 50% off at net-a-porter.com sale...i love the pattern, colors, and style, but i'm a bit scared of the length. i'm 5'8", but the website says the mannequin is 5'11" and the dress is like .5" from dusting the floor while on the mannequin. the length measurement provided on the website says 35.5" which is totally just...wrong. the design of the dress does not really allow for hemming. nervousness. oh well, guess i'll see when it gets here tomorrow.

http://www.net-a-porter.com/product/31540

 

[UNiQFashionista]

i have that dress, im 5'7 and i wear it with flats and its just short of touching the floor..its soo comfy you'll love it

 

[shopsmuch]

thank you lady! that just brightened my day. maybe it's specially made longer for the net-a-porter mannequin?

 

[seanutbutter]

maybe it's specially made longer for the net-a-porter mannequin?

Perhaps, but what could also be the case is that the mannequin has absolutely no figure whatsoever - no hips, chest, or noticeable stomach - so the dress simply lies flat and appears longer. That or Net-a-Porter created a different version, as you noted. Either way, I wouldn't worry - designers know not all their customers are 5'11", and consider that fact when creating dresses!

 

[punky]

http://www.gypsy05.com/shop/product.aspx?pid=114
an eco friendly version

 

[archana]

I am in love with this dress....

http://www.coast-stores.com/fcp/product/-/Maxi/Floral-Maxi-Dress/2224637998

I am 5'6 ... do you think i can pull it off?? Is it too grand for a simple party???

 

[shopsmuch]

i really don't know if you could "pull it off", because i don't know the length of the dress, but a 5'6" person generally looks just fine in a maxi dress that is the correct length.
no, i don't think it is too formal for a simple party. maxi dresses--especially in the playful and bright sorts of patterns like yours--can be worn practically anywhere.
today i got my manoush dress (it was a good length!) and wore it to a bookstore and to a casual lunch. yeah, not formal at all.

 

[shewar]

I am in love with this dress....

*please do not quote images. thank you.

http://www.coast-stores.com/fcp/product/-/Maxi/Floral-Maxi-Dress/2224637998

I am 5'6 ... do you think i can pull it off?? Is it too grand for a simple party???

that's gorgeous...go for it! i'm 5'7" and maxi dresses are a good length on me, i think you'll be fine.

 

[daniellat]

just dont over-accesorize it, keep it simple with nice sandals and youll look great!

 

[MahaK]

Punky...I just purcahsed one of the Eco Friendly Gypsy 05 dresses. I am hoping it will be nice and soft. For the price it is a great bargain, and I was looking for solid colored maxi dresses. Has anyone else tried these dresses? From what I have heard they are super comfy, and that was the look I was going for.

I bought this one in Purple

Photo- boutiquetoyou.com

 

[Tigerlily]

I Love ALL the dresses!!!!!
I wear them whenever i can but there a lot of people who don't get IT....
They feel you can only wear a long and wide dress if you are pregnant
AND I HATE IT IF PEOPLE SAY THIS!!!!!

Think outside the box

 

[punky]

yay, Tell us about it when you get it.

 

[AMACINOM]

i think they are so beautiful! been definitely seeing a lot of this trend lately.

irina's!
all pictures from the sartorialist

 

[McGovLau]

I feel like it would be too late for me to buy a maxi dress for the summer...how would these transfer into fall?

 

[Missyiovely]

Punky...I just purcahsed one of the Eco Friendly Gypsy 05 dresses. I am hoping it will be nice and soft. For the price it is a great bargain, and I was looking for solid colored maxi dresses. Has anyone else tried these dresses? From what I have heard they are super comfy, and that was the look I was going for.

I bought this one in Purple

*please do not quote images. thank you!

Photo- boutiquetoyou.com

I bought this dress in purple as well. Just received a notification that its gonna ship today. These dresses were all pre-order everywhere. Hope its cute

 

[Fontenrose]

Maxis foretell bad economy -- again?

Bulls, Bears and the Bellwether Hemline

by Suzy Menkes, NY Times

IF only those hedge fund hotties had taken their eyes off their screens and looked at Angelina Jolie’s hemlines! Financial pundits should note that in the months since the movie star found that she was expecting twins and adopted a new ankle-length, hippie-de-luxe style, the stock market has followed her downward trajectory.
The floor-sweeping style started a trend taken up by young Hollywood from Jessica Simpson to the über-stylist Rachel Zoe. Their look offers an eerie parallel with the 1970s — the last time that recession and plummeting hemlines were in unison.
Fashion is always a mirror of society. Thus, in a strange forecast of what the Federal Reserve discovered in the banking system, overexposure and total transparency in the wardrobe has been followed by complex cover-ups and a downward spiral. Fashion designers now seem clairvoyant.
This summer’s collections — shown last October, when stocks were still riding high — were filled with long skirts. From classic Chanel to cool Christopher Kane, dresses were long and languorous or a waterfall of frills — but always scraping the floor. Fashion had turned its back on the Paris Hilton girlie glitz: short, sheer dresses; sequinned sparkles; and any color as long as it’s pink.
Why wasn’t Wall Street noting the sartorial changes? Although designers always dismiss the correlation between skirt lengths and financial markets as a fashion historian’s fantasy, the parallels are striking. Hemlines rose to dizzying heights in the financial and social whirl of the roaring 1920s — revealing women’s legs for one of the first times in recorded history. Then came the bear market and bare was out — except for low backs on the floor-length gowns that dropped hemlines just before the 1929 Wall Street crash.
War always brings clothing back to the status quo, according to James Laver, the historian who traced the rise and fall of waistlines as symbolic of social upheaval in his sweeping study “Costume: The Arts of Man,” published in 1963. The end of World War II (and the arrival of Christian Dior) brought waists and hemlines back to “normal.” But as soon as the economy expanded in the 1960s, up and away went miniskirts — only to crash with the financial troubles in the 1970s. And so the graph of skirt lengths has continued in tandem with Western economies with the 15-year run of bull markets reflected in short-and-sweet dresses.
You could put the current fashion down to boredom and a desire for change. Or, in the case of Jolie and other actresses like Jessica Alba and Gwen Stefani, a way of maternity dressing that elongates a puffy silhouette and conceals swollen ankles and veined legs.
But that simplistic view does not explain why the long skirts have caught on even with young French women, who traditionally have always worn short, slim outfits. The fact that Jolie’s maternity wardrobe of high-waisted, floor-sweeping dresses came from Gérard Darel, a middle-market French clothing company, rather than from either a designer resource or a fast fashion chain, proves that there is a pent-up demand for the look. Expect a new version of the maxi coat to surface for winter.
Yet the absolute connection between finance and fashion remains more hunch than reality. Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, instigated a research project at Harvard Business School to try and nail the reality of the myth.
“There were many exceptions — the rule does not always apply,” said Mr. Koda, who himself looked at the idea that “flush times mean higher hemlines” by taking expansive fashion way back to the 1860s.
“What you can say is that any great designer has his or her finger on the pulse of society,” Mr. Koda said. “And when you are psychologically battered and feel a sense of encroaching pessimism, there is a tendency to cover up — whether that means long sleeves, higher necklines, long skirts or opaque tights.”
Mr. Koda has just returned from Moscow, where he noted skirts as brief and as thin as the veneer of luxury and glamour covering the party players in the city. The sky-high hemlines reinforce the hemline theory: in a country like Russia, where the economy is expanding and ostentatious consumption is the height of fashion, long skirts are nowhere to be seen.
Contrast that situation with the American mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tottering on the brink of commercial collapse and you see why the vogue for long dresses should have infiltrated even Hollywood, where the screenwriters’ strike last year added to the gloom coating the habitual glitz and glamour. As fashionistas might put it when asked why they voted for plunging hemlines: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

 

[myown]

I think maxi dresses are making a comeback this summer