Six Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress

Buying a dress is never as easy as it sounds, or for that matter, as easy as you think it will be at the outset. There are six things you should always consider when shopping for a new dress if you want to come home with one that is both figure flattering and to your style liking.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Occasion

The first thing you'll want to determine before even setting foot in a store or clicking that "checkout" button on your favorite online fashion shopping site is what occasion you're buying the dress for. When I say occasion, I don't necessarily mean one specific event; it could be for cocktails, or shopping and other out-and-about ramblings with friends, or for work attire. Basically you'll need to assess if the dress is a multiple occasion wardrobe piece or if it's for that rare sort of event that only comes up once a year.

From there, you'll want to further narrow it down to casual, semi-casual, or formal. This will help a lot with the later decisions of color, style, era, etc.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Style/Era

Keeping in mind all the other choice listed above, you'll next want to choose a style and era of dress. Style kind of falls in with cut, so the two are practically synonymous. Think about if you want to go modern, vintage, classic, or high glamor.

After you've got your style or era in mind, you'll want to think about cut; the cut of a dress blends in with the style category because often a popular cut becomes a style or vice versa, so it helps to think of them together.

There are several options:

Cocktail Dress

Sheath Dress

Sundress

Shirtdress

Wraparound Dress

Baby Doll Dress

Gown

Etc.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Cut

Once you've got the occasion firm in your mind, then you can decide on cut. First, you'll want to think about whether you want the dress to be short or long, tight or loose, revealing or not.

Long dresses, tend to fall into polar opposite categories of occasions; a long sundress for example would best fit a casual occasion, but a knee length one, depending on style, could be appropriate for evening cocktails or business meetings.

From there you'll want to decide if you want your dress to be loose fitting or tight. If you are buying the dress for a casual occasion you might opt for an empire waist or baby doll knee length dress with a loose fit. If you are going for a formal occasion, you might opt for a more heavily constructed form fitting dress providing an hourglass silhouette.

A classic sheath dress is a great choice for most occasions, but beware that there are many different styles of sheath dress out there. Some sheath dresses are quite form fitting and great for work attire, while some are more loose fitting, which can suit casual or semi-formal outings, depending on all the other variables outlined here in this article.

Deciding on whether to buy a revealing dress or a modest one is really a matter of personal taste and assessment of the event for which it is to be worn.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Color

Color in dress buying is a matter of taste and mood, but it also a matter of occasion, season, and day versus evening wear, if you are a trend follower, you can throw trending in there too.

Current Trend Tip: If you are considering trends when making your color selection this year, you'll want to note that white is big, floral prints are in, and nautical and tribal prints are still going strong since their breakthrough about 3 years ago.

Pale colors tend to be better suited to day wear and warm weather seasons; this is not a hard and fast rule, but often proves true. White, for example, is all the rage right now and is perfectly suited to day wear, but not quite as appropriate for evening attire as black or red.

Remember to keep your personality and skin tone in the equation when choosing a color for your new dress as well.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Body Parts to Hide or Play Up

This category also goes hand-in-hand with the style and cut categories because the body parts you most want to show off or hide will determine what style and cut of dress you ultimately buy. The first thing to do is take a good long look at yourself in the mirror and determine what your best features are, this will tell you all you need to know to buy a dress that will flatter your figure.

There are so many tips and tricks to play up or hide given body parts that I couldn't possibly list them all, so here are just two to get you started:

If you want to play up or accentuate your hips, the knee length 50's style belted waist dresses with a flared skirt are a great choice.

If you want to appear thinner black is always a good color choice and dresses that have a bias cut are a smart option because this particular cut tends to elongate you a bit.

Things to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dress: Undergarments

This aspect of dress buying is so important. Consider what color undergarment you will need to match your dress so that nothing shows through. Also note that if you've bought a very tight/binding dress, you might want to think about purchasing Spanx and/or a corset. Be sure that you've covered all the bases such as, getting a strapless bra for a strapless dress, concealing the areas you want hidden, and matching everything appropriately. Once you've done all that, you're ready to go out and knock 'em dead in that dress.

Now that you've got everything in mind, it's time to go out and buy that dress!