Until last month, I would have said with confidence: “head-to-toe white is not something that suits me.”
I like white in the summer (who doesn’t?), but anything white, ivory or cream, any dress in the white spectrum is a younger woman’s thing.
That’s what most women over 50 have been taught: white will make you look like an old-fashioned bridesmaid faster than a ruched apricot dress.
And then there was Lady Starmer, 51, flying into Washington DC just days before the election wearing a cream dress (cream on an eight-hour flight!) and overnight making a woman in her 50s look like the future.
Lady Starmer, seen with husband Sir Keir, wore a cream dress on a flight to Washington DC this summer, and overnight made a woman in her fifties look like the future.
She chose a £450 Needle and Thread dress for the eight-hour flight.
She chose a dress from Needle And Thread (£450, needleandthread.com), which is out of reach for most budgets. Still, it gives you pause: why not white or cream?
As long as it’s chic, understated and dressy enough to work at a NATO leaders meeting, the white dress now tops the list of things we’d like to wear.
The reclaimed white dress is simple, clean and unpretentious (the difference between dresses we can wear and those our daughters can wear) and comes in two distinct categories.
First up, we have the lightweight, easy-on-and-off summer dress. It’s the one you wear on holiday or when it’s swelteringly hot at home. Marks & Spencer has an ivory cotton tiered midi dress with voluminous sleeves (£39.50, marksandspencer.com) that fits the bill.
Or, if your skin tone suits a pearly white, M&S Autograph has a pretty loose dress with a V-neck, fitted waist and gorgeous three-quarter puff sleeves (£89).
On the pearly white front, there’s a Jigsaw dress that’s been a hit with fashion editors (£92, jigsaw-online.com).
It’s loose-fitting, V-neck, slightly gathered below the bust, with wide, elbow-length draped sleeves – the classic cool, relaxed dress, but made extra summery and soft by the textured, slightly crinkled white jacquard fabric that looks as cool as it feels (and moves beautifully when rolled up).
Actress Minnie Driver, 54, wears a white, sleeveless, calf-length dress in New York in June.
Anne Hathaway, 41, dressed in white at a Bulgari event in Rome earlier this year
The second type of reclaimed white dress is a little more elegant. Sessun’s cream Galaposa dress (£107.50, biscuit.clothing) has a similar fit-and-flare cut to Starmer’s Needle And Thread dress, but with buttons down the front and gathers at the waist.
Don’t be intimidated by gathers (rows of parallel, elastic stitching) if you don’t wear a fitted dress; they’re not too different from darts and can be flattering.
The other obvious chic choice is a variation on the shirt dress that has been the centre of attention this summer. There were several on display in the VIP areas at Wimbledon, where the Queen wore a cream Anna Valentine-style shirt dress, albeit with pale embroidery at the hem.
Cos has a V-neck shirt dress with elbow-length sleeves that’s loose enough to wear on a hot day and smart enough to wear to the office (£85, cos.com); or there’s Jolie Moi’s linen-viscose blend midi shirt dress (£68, johnlewis.com) which is described as oatmeal but is pale enough to pass for cream.
A step up in price is Jasper Conran’s signature Blythe dress (£250, johnlewis.com), a smart fitted cotton shirt dress with a mid-length elasticated waist and wide fabric belt.
The Queen wore a cream Anna Valentine shirt dress with pale embroidery to Wimbledon.
This dress has been getting some attention this summer, mostly because it has sleeves, comes in a couple different lengths and several colors (including white), and is dressy enough to wear to a wedding (although wearing white to a wedding is still a no-go, unless the bride is wearing pink).
The best thing about all these dresses is that they don’t require any effort to wear.
You can dress them up with dressier sandals, in any color, including black, and the same goes for your bag and hat if you’re going to a garden party.
They work with sandals, flats or flip-flops and look great with sunglasses.
There is no need to add color, you definitely shouldn’t add pattern.
Keep it simple and sophisticated and a white dress will be a real eye-catcher.