Fashion Fix - Jessica Diner
EPISODE 6: HOW TO FIND THE PERFECT OCCASIONWEAR DRESS
Welcome to Fashion Fix at THE OUTNET, our IGTV styling series where we answer your fashion dilemmas.
Jess Diner may be best known for her winning beauty journalism, but she’s also a self-confessed dress addict who truly knows how to master sartorial ceremony. Here she presents the three styles to see you through every formal occasion this summer, be it glamorous weddings and garden parties or super high-octane cocktail and black-tie events. Her go-to piece of advice? “If I had one tip for occasionwear this season, it’s to be bold but be sure to be comfortable,” she says.
“For this, I’ve chosen a fabulous floral Zimmermann look. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m partial to a Zimmermann dress. I feel like it ticks all the right boxes because it’s a little bit fancy, but super comfortable and wearable. Zimmermann dresses often come with a coordinating slip underneath, so you get this really nice double floral effect which just adds that further dimension. It comes with a belt – and usually when a dress comes with a belt, I’m the first to discard it – but I really like this one, it elevates it a little with the metallic twist.”
“I know a lot of people have been asking what to wear for garden parties, so this is how I’d do it. I’ve gone for this gorgeous Valentino dress (you can’t go wrong with Valentino), with a Bytimo cropped jacket and some Rupert Sanderson heels. What I love about it – and I really do love this dress, to wear it is divine – is the gorgeous bohemian print and lace trim. I also really love the wafty, floaty silhouette, so you can imagine just floating through a garden party, cocktail in hand. It’s free flowing, there’s nothing restrictive and it’s comfortable to wear, but also super glamorous. To finish things off, I’d add a pair of earrings – these are by Oscar de la Renta.”
“As you can tell, we’ve really amped it up here. This is a showstopper of a dress by Erdem, who always knows what he’s doing when it comes to really formal dressing. What I love about this is that it’s fancy, but so comfortable. When I first tried it on, I found a tiny little detail that just literally elevates it into absolute perfection for me, which is the fact that it has pockets. Any dress that has pockets is a ten out of ten because it means you don’t need a bag. I’ve paired it with a few sparkly touches that really pull everything together nicely. I’ve got some lovely sparkly, jingly-jangly earrings and these Tory Burch heels, which are really comfortable.”