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Rein in the sack dress

June 20th, 2007

The “it” item this season, celebrities can’t stop wearing them and dress departments are full of them. The sack (or shift) dress is a ‘60’s inspired boxy mini that’s looks… well… like a sack. It’s muu-muu quality makes it comfortable, but at the same time enormously shapeless and difficult to pull off with style.

Sack dresses in soft draping fabrics like sateen, chiffon and thick jersey are a little more flattering, but still not ideal. Matching them with leggings, skinnies and straight leg pants gets a look going, but does little for your silhouette.

The only way I’ve felt fab wearing a sack dress is by belting it at the waist over a pair of slim fitting pants. And a wider belt works better than a narrow one. This combination gives you the volume and the shape. Try reining in that sack dress (without the pants if you have great legs). You might prefer this high fashion look if you do.

Tufi Duek Satin Shift Dress Nanette Lepore Print Shift DressNanette Lepore Print Shift Dress (with Belt)

Left: Satin shift dress is easier to pull off because of the draping fabric.
Right: Sack dress paired with a wide belt for extra  shape.

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4 Replies

Posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 7:39 am
pam

I have always loved these dresses for summer, because they are so cool – literally. And never having had much of a waist, anyway, being a square mesomorph at best, I have found them flattering! But for a skinny minnie – I can see what you are saying….

Posted on June 20th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Meg

Oh, those sack dresses are really awful in general. They do remind me of muu-muus. The belt definitely helps, though I’ve found that because of the way sack dresses are cut, they often don’t look right even with a belt because there is too much fabric gathering in the back. The extra fabric has to go somewhere. I wonder what the dress on the right with the belt looks like from behind. My guess is that it isn’t pretty.

Posted on June 20th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Bob

Neither of these shift dresses look awful at all … they do not look like “sacks” at all … in fact I think they both look very appealing! I really love seeing women wearing shift dresses such as the ones above … they are very elegant and sexy.

The shift keeps coming back season after season because it’s so versatile. A woman can take it from day to night and from the office to cocktails. Not only that, it can hide a multitude of sins…which is always a good thing. It can also be worn with or without a belt for two very different looks. While I oersonally prefer to see the shift dress worn without a belt, it can also look great cinched in at the waist with a wonderful wide belt like the one shown.

By the way, I hate when a pretty shift dress like the one on the right is called a “sack”! The dress on the right is definitely not a sack!

Posted on April 15th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Stirrup leggings: my favourite look this season | youlookfab

[...] above. From a sleek mock-wrap dress on the left, to a voluminous sheath in the middle, and a reined in sack dress on the right. Shirt dresses and empire cuts will work well too. I swap out the frock for a pencil [...]

Posted on June 24th, 2009 at 6:43 am

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