Allow me to paint a familiar picture: You’re invited to a fancy event. You spend months sourcing the perfect dress, buying and returning so many things your house looks like UPS. The evening arrives and it’s chillier than expected. You need a layer, so you reach for… a cardigan sweater? Suddenly, the whole look is giving school uniform.
With wedding/soiree season upon us, we’re covering the best jackets to wear with your dress, plus a few not-to-be-missed dresses. What I love about a great, intentional jacket is that it doesn’t stop at eveningwear; each one can also elevate a pair of jeans, so you’re covering a few different “night out” looks in one go.
1. Toteme necklace 2. A.Emery clutch 3. Nili Lotan cropped blazer 4. TWP gown (I’m wearing a 4) 5. One coat of Mademoiselle, top coat of Ballet Slippers 6. Tony Bianco heels
Long and midi dresses almost always look better with a shorter jacket, especially if you are short. Most coats and blazers hit somewhere between your hips and your knees, which creates an awkward visual break and chops up the line of the dress. A cropped jacket keeps things clean, elongates the silhouette, and shows more of the dress.
The Blazer Exception: The blazer exception is when you use an oversized blazer to balance nudity, and by that I mean a huge slit, or a see through skirt:
COS jacket 2. Marant wooden bracelet 3. Tony Bianco heels (Hot take: Tony Bianco makes The Row shoes better than The Row does) 4. Simkhai clutch (or this one from TRR) 5. ALC dress
Leset jacket 2. Oak&Luna earrings 3. Zara clutch 4. YSL heels 5. Arakii dress
Helmut Lang cropped satin jacket (-40%) 2. Mango heels 3. YSL pouch 4. Dorsey earrings 5. Reformation dress
A.Emery jacket 2. Mango clutch 3. Prada heels 4. Chloe bracelet 5. Mango dress
If the evening’s outdoors and you suspect you might not even get a chance to take off your coat, lean in and make it your whole outfit:
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