Sal, I think I was picking the wrong fabric, re: dresses. Each was polyester woven, and that might be the problem. I need a break from dress shopping and perhaps I'll start up again in the spring.
Sandy, thanks for posting and yay for the camo scarf! I thought it was fun. I know it's crazy to say that it took me five years to figure this out, but there are many small things I learned about my style that took time and experimentation. For example, I like more variety of silhouette in the summer, necklines need to be fairly tight to the shoulder, I need very curvy fit jeans...little details like that.
I shop at the Gap, Banana Republic and JCrew...so it is very easy to build my wardrobe.
The only recent shoes are the khaki olive booties which are dolce vita and I got at Town Shoes. (Not sure this retailer is available in the US.)
The sneakers are Ecco and I think the style is still available.