Tea Dresses: The #1 Dress For All Body Types & All Occasions!?

Beach dress. Check. Office dress. Check. Cocktail dress, weekend dress, date night dress, flirty dress, preppy dress. Check, check check, check. If you think I’m throwing around words, you’re wrong. Reaching adulthood (#eyeroll) has also made me reach some new sartorial conclusions: staples will always beat trends, and trends are better when they come from staples. Whatever, it’s not a big deal, but when it comes to tea dresses I think we’re sitting on a goldmine.

Back in the 40s tea dresses were the home dresses women used to wear as casual outfits around the house. Loose lines and unstructured silhouettes characterised this dress in which you had tea. What started off as a light wear kinda dress later was redesigned to fit all occasions and all body types. Or at least to be more versatile, and the outcome was amazing.

If you ask me (and I know you don’t but imma tell you anyway) the tea dress is Diane Von Furstenberg’s wrap dress’s sister. Period.

What is a tea dress?

It’s a dress you wear to have tea (wine, whiskey, coffee, water, pizza, steak, cakes, anything really). Groundbreaking. It’s a light fabric dress in bright prints or colours, very summer spring friendly, usually mid length, and very cocktail appropriate. Throughout the years designers have given us millions of styles, cuts and lengths for the tea dress so today it’s a casual dress in a very light fabric, in any colour, length, print, pattern, usually with cap sleeves, spaghetti straps, or sleeveless (aka wrap dress inspired), with a slit or not, full skirt, or more A-line – a dress you can take anywhere.

Mini tea dresses styles are perfect for the beach, for holidays, for casual situations, paired with espadrilles, bare feet, flat sandals.

Midi lengths are amazing for anything from office days to casual days, and so easy to dress up or down, to spice it up You can add a blazer and stilettos for work, or a leather jacket and a pair of edgy heels for a night out. Or you can keep it super simple, flirty or polished for a wedding par example.

Why is the tea dress perfect for all women?

Body wise I think it fits all types because it’s flattering on anyone. It sort of falls on the body and hugs it where it should, it hides what you want hidden and so on. It’s incredibly feminine and very easy to play with, style wise.

Tall women can wear mostly any length, while short girls can pull off mini, and above the knee in a brilliant way. Narrow shoulders look great with cap sleeves, while broad shoulders with sleeveless styles. Skinny girls can pull off spaghetti straps. Tea dresses cinged at the waist with a tiny little strap are great for hourglass shapes.

Besides we all want to look great with the least of efforts and the tea dress kinda does that for us. Also if you secretly have a thing for those vintage fashion films a la Sophia Loren or some Italian Dolce and Gabbana scenario – this dress is the IT dress. I swear to God I feel like one of those D&G women when I wear one. I could suffer from delusion here, but we’ll not look into that. I’m trying to focus on the positive things in my life right now.

#twirlsinteadress

How to wear tea dresses?

2017 is all about the block heel, the low square heel sandals, the flat shoes, or the sneakers – and all these shoes look great with tea dresses. They look trendy, retro cool, sophisticated, casual and so on.

A pair of great stilettos though will always make my heart skip a beat. Sure it’s not your 8 am go to look, but it can be that and so much more. Cocktail outfit, wedding guest look. Perfection. #carriebradshaw

You can also rock them in autumn and winter and layer them with knits, cardigans, scarves, and over the knee boots. Or… I’m just getting a little too carried away here.

Where to wear tea dresses?

TO TEA! And that sort of stuff. The acronym actually stands for more posh situations, like dinners, and cocktails, and that sort of stuff, yet over the years girls have worn heir tea dresses to brunch, to Sunday farmer’s markets, as a throw on piece for very laid back situations, beach days, picnics and what not.

Office attire. YASSS. That too. A very smart version of this dress (sans a deep cleavage, spaghetti straps, and high slit) is perfect for work. It’s professional, summer’ish, fuss free, and cute.

Street style inpso: