I’ve been on a bit of a dress kick lately. After months of wearing pants it admittedly takes me a little bit to get in to wearing skirts and dresses but I think it’s safe to say I’ve been reminded of the ease of wearing dresses in the summer time for work and for casual activities. For the most part, I don’t wear a ton of shorts (that might be changing…more on that in another post) so dresses are often my weekend go to item. This isn’t rocket science, they’re just easy, you can dress them up or down and depending on the style wear them to work and then out for drinks with a little accessory/shoe switch up (ooh, another post idea…)

Here’s a few of my recent summer dress purchases and how I’ve styled them:

J.Crew Stripe Back-Zip Dress

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I’m sorry for the crooked picture…sometimes I take them this way so my arm isn’t in the way and then I can edit them to flip them so it’s straight…and I am not quite there yet, I’ll figure out how to flip them. I posted about this dress a few weeks ago. I didn’t buy it when it was full price but when it went on sale plus another 40% off I was all over that! I took a size smaller than my usual J.Crew dress size so I would say it definitely runs big. For a summer dress, it hits right above my knee but it is perfect. I probably wouldn’t wear it to work (maybe on a Friday) but this is a perfect weekend dress. I think a belt might help the waistline too.

I wore this dress out for a casual dinner tonight and I wore it with my new (well, new to me) J.Crew denim vest in Workwear wash from last summer which I recently found on eBay for $20. I’ve been seeing denim vests on a lot of ladies on Instagram and finally decided I would try and pull one off. Here’s a photo of how I styled the dress for going out for a casual dinner:

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 Flip Flops: Banana Republic / Denim Vest: J.Crew from last year (similar at J.Crew Factory)

Next up…

J.Crew Embroidered Floral Racer Dress

I was originally drawn to the top in this print but the top fit funny so, still liking the print I decided to give the dress a try. The full skirt looked promising for my hips and it also looked to be a decent length. I was a bit worried about the top due to reviews of it being a big snug. Well, it is, but I decided this was something I could live with. I do have  a slight bit of pancake chest in this dress but considering I thought I would mostly wear it with a cardigan I decided I was ok with the chest issue and have made sure I wear a less padded (racerback) bra when wearing it.

20140615_104052I find that this dress needs a belt when I wear it as the waistline is a little poofy with all of the tucked fabric at the waist. Easy enough. I added a cardigan and a belt when I was playing around with styling:

20140615_104505And here’s the finished product of how I styled this dress recently for work:

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Necklace: J.Crew Factory Jeweled Triangle Necklace / Cardigan : J.Crew Featherweight Cashmere Cardigan / Flats: Kate Spade Gabe Flats (sold out)

I really like both of these dresses because they are neutral enough that you can perk them up with some colors or keep them neutral with similar color tones.  I already have a few more styling ideas for these dresses and look forward to getting more use out of them this summer.

So, what do you think of these dresses? Do you have either one of them?  Would love to hear what you think and thanks for visiting!

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