EDIT: Our five favourite dress trends for summer

Only the very best mini, midi and maxi summer dresses to carry you through summer.

This is it, guys. The home stretch, the last hurrah… the week before THE week we’ll be flopping, face first, into a mimosa and a pile of potatoes. We thought there could be no better way to round out 2024 than with a bonanza series of summer wardrobe workhorses to solve all your warm-weather dressing conundrums.

We originally intended on bringing you just one bumper newsletter of warm weather essentials this week, but it was getting so long that we thought we’d break it up a little.

So, in this first drop, we bring you a round-up of our favourite summer dresses. A.k.a the ultimate one-and-done outfit.

We’ve brought you a very generous edit here. Not because we can’t make our mind up on which are our favourite pieces (Soph wants to be buried in this Luuda dress) but because we always try to make sure we’re not just choosing pieces we’d wear ourselves but pieces we would suggest to every favourite woman in our life: be that our mum, great aunt, best friend’s step-daughter, etc etc.

This summer it’s all about dresses that could a) pass for a nightie, b) be worn with thongs or heels (better still, with thong-heels), or c) double as a beach cover-up. And a caveat: like 99.95% of women, we aren’t the biggest fans of our arms but we’ll be damned if we aren’t going to free our pits in the name of vanity.

Find our key dress trends and top picks for each below.

The (non-boring) breezy black dress

A black dress in summer is a power move, both endlessly versatile AND timelessly chic. This season it’s all about a spaghetti strap and a fuller skirt than we’ve seen in recent years. No plain, straight slips in sight.

1. DISSH / Milano — $179.99

2. ASSEMBLY LABEL / Alba Crepe Mini Dress — $100

3. FAITHFULL THE BRAND / Lowen Mini Dress — $310

4. ALPHA60 / Roux Dress — $209

5. ROWIE / Eden Organic Mini Dress — $249

6. ROWIE / Claudia Silk Slip Mini Dress — $289

7. ASSEMBLY LABEL / Aubrey Rouched Dress — $160