Strapless Dresses - Your Stories? - YouLookFab Forum

Category

General

Welcome! Read about what to wear and how to wear it on the YLF Blog. Join the YLF Forum to ask specific questions or just chat about fashion and personal style. Or check out the curated list of things we love in YLF Finds.

Outfits Ensembles Trends Advice

Strapless Dresses - Your Stories?

deb

Veteran

I have never worn a strapless dress mainly because I have no boobs and all of the dresses I tried on slipped right down. Not really good for dancing. But, I have always been curious about the highlights and pitfalls of wearing such dresses. I figured our wide worldly group of women here must have stories that I can live vicariously through. So, please share your experiences so I might be able to feel your highs and lows in the strapless dress.

General

39 replies

Latest reply was from Archer

rachylou

Veteran

Strapless dresses with rubberized edging work for me and also...boning! Yes, like the Victorians. So the bodice doesn't collapse under its own weight.

Bad is when the dress takes your bra with it Never had a Janet Jackson, but it's been close.

Isabel

Veteran

I have never done a strapless dress...and what I have to offer may be irrelevant, but here goes.

In high school, I was a majorette and competitive baton twirler ( I KNOW ! ) . And once I had to wear a costume with a top that had spaghetti straps. Being the prude that I was/am, I HAD to wear a bra. So I went strapless. Let's say that I did 2/3 of my routine with belly "protrusions". LOL !

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Never wore one, never will. I'm on the other end of the spectrum, with a large bust, and it's not really a good look. Plus, there's the whole strapless bra situation, which is problematic at best. Don't hate me, but I don't find strapless styles to be universally flattering, so it has always mystified me how many wedding gowns are made in this style.

Oh wait, I had one! A corset style top, so the support was built in. But I always wore a jacket over it. And I was a lot younger and cuter than I am now.

I'm sure many of you have rocked a strapless look, but it's not for me.

Brooklyn

Veteran

I have the same issue as you Deb, but when I was younger and (more) stupid I bought a velvet strapless dress to wear to 21st birthday parties. The first time I wore it I spent the whole night hitching it up. My clever mother sewed double velvet spaghetti straps on it to solve the problem. It worked a treat and the dress survived many events.

deb

Veteran

My daughter had a strapless wedding dress but the seamstress added so much padding and stitched the boning to her body. She danced and partied all night with no issues. The only drawback was that the dress had no resemblance to her body shape because of the padding. She told me it was great for her ego.

rabbit

Veteran

I wore a strapless dress for prom, which was awhile ago. It was vintage 40's/50's and heavy taffeta fitted with boning and zipped up. It worked fine for dancing, which I think was mainly due to it being tightly fitted to my ribcage and me having very little in the way of boobs at the time.

More recently I wore a strapless jersey dress which has the rubberized edging rachylou mentions. It stayed up okay with a strapless bra underneath, but the edging actually got kind of uncomfortable and I got tired of wearing foundation garments because the skirt part was so clingy so I passed it on.

Aziraphale

Veteran

I am more middle-of-the-road in the breast department, and strapless dresses work just fine on me. Boning in the bodice helps to give the chest and torso a nice shape and keep the dress from migrating downward, and is surprisingly comfortable. Even with no boning, the dress can work, but it has to fit really well or you end up with an unflattering monoboob look. I've never worn a strapless dress with a bra, and believe me, I CANNOT do without a bra under any other circumstances! The bodice of the dress should be snug enough to support your chest, but as has already been suggested, this works best for women who are neither small- nor large-chested.

Actually, I have to agree with Janet that I don't think strapless dresses are the most universally flattering -- especially if the dress is too tight (boobs squishing out the top = no). Lol. I don't understand why just about every wedding gown you ever see is strapless. It's not my favourite look. The only times I've ever worn strapless was those few times I was a bridesmaid and I had no choice in the matter -- even bridesmaids' dresses are strapless, it seems! My own wedding dress had elbow sleeves.

Deborah

Veteran

I have only ever worn a stapless dress once that I can recall. It was a bridesmaid dress and made me feel uncomfortable and conspicuous. I am large busted and really do not like to drawer attention to that part of my body. As far as style goes, I have always preferred a little more coverage. And I have never found a strapless bra that was remotely comfortable or made me confident / secure

Anonymous

I love the look of strapless dresses. My pitfall was finding a bra to wear beneath the dress that worked with the dress and not against the dress.

BlondeAmbition

The first time I wore a strapless dress I had be choice in the matter because I was a bridesmaid. It was nerve racking because I wear a 38G and didn't have much experience buying a strapless bra. I ended up buying a heavy corset bra but the material of the dress was too flimsy and you could see the outlines of the corset plus the pointed cups through the dress. It was not a good look but like I said I didn't have any say in the matter. It was an uncomfortable evening.

I went on to experiment a little with strapless because my décolletage is quite nice and it is a flattering look on my despite my large bust. I ended up getting a strapless wedding dress because that was nearly all that was available at the time and anything that was covered up drowned me out. It was a heavily beaded top with a built in corset and I wore a very comfortable strapless bra so it was pretty comfy.

Staysfit

Veteran

I have never tried one. My DD did, but she has a larger chest than me. We had to have a tailor take it in and add some padding to help keep it from slipping but it worked.

It was a lot of work! I would say go with a one shoulder bare look as a compromise.

Janet

(website)

Veteran

Ugh, why do brides foist a style onto bridesmaids that is not flattering to them? I'll never understand that.

Hi five, Elisabeth. I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's almost a poison eye for me. And yes, the monoboob look! *groan*

I have a swim coverup that is strapless (one of those can be worn as a skirt or a dress kind of thing), but because it always goes over my swimsuit, it always has the appearance of shoulder straps or a halter top, depending on the suit. That is the extent of my investment in strapless.

Anonymous

I don't do strapless anything. Too much effort to keep it up, lol.

JAileen

Veteran

I don't like the strapless bridal gown trend. I used to watch that show on tv about wedding dresses and 99 percent of the brides chose a strapless dress, regardless of their their size. And they were all sizes. Do they think they have to choose that style?

I got married in winter and wore a long sleeve dress. It was actually two dresses: the outer dress with long sleeves and kind of a crew neck, and the inner dress which was a slip dress. It sounds very Victorian, but I think it was more 20s inspired.

rachylou

Veteran

I don't understand strapless wedding gowns. I'd get so cold. I also remember when my best girlfriend was getting married and was considering doing so in temple...the rabbi told her no showing your shoulders to god there...

Anonymous

The only strapless thing I ever wore was a tube top, I'm embarrassed to say, but hey, I was young and foolish. It was a short phase, thank goodness.

gradfashionista

(website)

Veteran

I almost owned one once, but reconsidered when I lifted my arms to adjust my hair and the dress slipped to my navel. I've never found one that didn't slip down precariously the moment I threatened to lift my arms. Also, I recently noticed that strapless tops/dress make my chest look *very* low, even with a strapless or built-in bra. It's quite disconcerting. Perhaps my chest has fallen without my notice, or the strapless aspect draws attention to my relatively short arms (meaning that my chest hits closer to my elbow than to the top of my upper arm), or that the added muscle on my traps lengthens the distance from my neckline to the my chest line. In any event, the look makes me feel insecure.

plonkee

I have worn heavily boned strapless tops in my 20s and they looked great. But when I was a bridesmaid in my early 30s I elected to wear the removable spaghetti straps. They added about 10% support, but that little extra made the dress work from 1pm to 2am.

Anonymous

I never had 'belly protrusions' as Isabel did, but I *did* have "quad boob".

DonnaF

Veteran

Once when I wore a tube top in the early '80s, it flipped down as I walked. Maybe I was swinging my arms? Luckily, I was wearing a shirt or something on top. No bra underneath. That was my last time for wearing a tube top.

April

Veteran

Not sure I've ever worn a strapless dress, but I can tell you my observations from my son's pre-prom photo session. His date wore an extremely elegant, crystal-studded strapless floor-length gown, and it clearly kept feeling like it was about to fall off, because she kept surreptitiously snatching at the top of it, in a gesture that would be recognizable to any woman who's ever worn strapless.

She looked gorgeous, but I did wonder how much fun it would be to spend the evening tugging in the hope of not having a wardrobe malfunction.

My advice: fashion tape, and plenty of it.

kerlyn

Veteran

I wore strapless gowns for proms and as a bridesmaid, and they were all fine without a bra due to the boning and rather substantial material. I found them to be fairly comfortable, but I do remember feeling the need to "hike" them up throughout the evening!

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

Not since my high school prom and no intention to find the miracle bra that would make it even possible.

Joy

Veteran

My sister is an assistant for a priest who refuses to do a wedding where bride or bridesmaids have strapless dresses after an unfortunate incident in which someone stepped on a dress hem and everything came falling down.
This is in a resort area and there are many requests for weddings. She has started off by telling whoever calls that Father does not allow strapless dresses and has had the phone call ended abruptly many times.

deb

Veteran

Love all these stories. Thanks all!!!

Gigi

Veteran

I had to wear a strapless dress for my brother's wedding, as a bridesmaid. I was supposed to wear a strapless bra under it, but the gal from the wedding dress place mixed things up and delivered a C-cup strapless bra for me (I was an A cup). Well, that clearly wasn't going to work. So I had to ditch the bra (which made me feel very self-conscious, seeing as it was a church wedding) and wear the dress by itself. The dress was never in danger of slipping down, but I remember that it was so tight after the alterations that I could hardly breathe. I literally could not expand my rib cage all the way. So that would be my suggestion if you want to wear a strapless gown that will not fall off--make sure it's so tight that you can't take a full breath.

rachylou

Veteran

Gradfashionista, that is a fab story lol

April

Veteran

Off-topic wedding wardrobe malfunction story: one of my sisters-in-law wore her mother's wedding gown for her own wedding. The gown was was not strapless (that's the off-topic part.)

But at the reception, someone stepped on the hem and the entire bodice detached from the full skirt, owing to thread that had deteriorated in the 30 years between her mother's wedding and her own.

Anonymous

Someone stepped on my sister's wedding dress and ripped it like that.

12