I don’t want to alarm you but you should probably know, if you don’t already, that the floral midi dress is officially Over. The gentle, benign dress with sleeves in a nice print, with a hint of shape but nothing tight or tricky, has been banished, just as we are seeking a route out of winter layers into something more springlike.
And here’s the thing. It has been banished not by an 18-year-old on TikTok, or by some grand Hollywood stylist, but by John Lewis, would you believe it. The department store made a gentle but firm announcement at the press launch of its spring styles that the jolly, spriggy, comfy flower-print calf-length dress is no longer what they are suggesting one wears.
Naturally John Lewis was extremely polite about it, and promised that if you really cannot live without one, a nice assistant will do their best to dig you one out of the stockroom while you have a bowl of soup and a roll in A Place to Eat, but the message was there nonetheless. It is time to move on.
Cheer up! Change is good. Or at least, change is the one constant in life, so you may as well get on board. Also, John Lewis has a point. (It would have, wouldn’t it? Eminently sensible.) If we are honest, the floral midi dress had become a bit stale.
As a way to dress, it had reached the point of ubiquity where it just wasn’t saying anything any more. Clothes don’t need to be shouty, but they should have something to say about who you are. Which is how we unlock the answer to the key question, which is, obviously, what to wear instead. What did the floral midi dress say about us, five or six summers ago, when it first became a uniform?
Well, for starters, this kind of dress is smart and respectable but does not semaphore a fancy, bling lifestyle in the way that wearing something plastered in designer logos does, so it makes you seem approachable.
Also, it is pretty and decorative but not in a brash look-at-me sort of way, and that frames you as a potential team player, or at least not as someone who needs to be the centre of attention all the time. And it is grown up without being old-fashioned.
Now all these positives still stand, but what has changed is that while that frock also used to signal that you were up-to-date with fashion, that is no longer the case. The floral midi has fallen – just slightly – behind that curve.
What we now need is a look that says competent adult who probably has some chat about, say, the new series of Succession. My suggestion – and this is going to sound like a curveball – is a trouser suit, not too rigidly tailored, not in black.
It has to be easy to wear, so the key is how you style it. I’d go for a flat or low block heel with a T-shirt or vest rather than anything too smart. Think of it like putting on trousers and a top, and grabbing a jacket as you leave the house; it just so happens it all matches.
This is a very different visual to a floral midi, but in terms of what it says about you as a person, it is very much on the same page. It is to now what the floral midi was to 2018. Give it a whirl. I give it five years.
Hair and makeup: Carol Morley at Carol Hayes Management. Model: Lilly Bridger at Body London. Linen suit: John Lewis. Tank top: Toteme from Matches Fashion
