Please help me find stylish summer maxi dresses

[Notmenothere]

Hello

I have a city break coming up and am looking for a stylish maxi dress, ideally navy or a dark colour that won’t show the dirt (when I inevitably spill something on myself).

I’m 5 ft 5 and a size 6-8.

Please help. I’m so unstylish and just want to feel put together for one weekend.

Signed

Frumpy feeling mum of 2

https://www.apricotonline.co.uk/ric-rac-trim-cotton-midaxi-dress/D519425-Navy.html

You’re the same height and size as me and I wore this in Madrid last week and was very comfy.

H&M shirt dress. Seems perfect to me and comes in loads of different colours and patterns and pretty much all of them, including the ones reduced to ludicrous prices, are available in xxs, which would be your size. Honestly you could have two or three without breaking a sweat and they are such different patterns it wouldn't feel like the same dress. Personally I'm in love with the black floral and the red and white at the mo and a couple others. Lol I'm trying not to buy the black floral because I have another very similar dress already. On the other hand...I wear the other dress a lot and it's definitely not exactly the same so why not? 😂
www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.1217576025.html

Hello again, OR you could go the other way and go relatively upmarket and get something gorgeous from somewhere like Toast. An example - my fave dress of theirs at the moment.
https://www.toa.st/collections/womens-dresses/products/paintbox-print-fluid-shirt-dress-delft

Thank you, these are lovely. The H&M ones look like a bargain!

Also happy to know of any recommended summer outfits in general - ideally long/flowy/not very tight.

Just saw this too! Rather lovely (I do love green).
https://www.finerylondon.com/products/katie-olive-woodblock-midi-smock-dress?variant=52233551675724&currency=GBP&gad_source=5&gad_campaignid=22026638095&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3OX1-Yi_jgMVOkGkBB06xTd8EAEYASABEgKACfD_BwE

If I had budget for this kind of dress, I'd be going for Aspiga. We have a shop in our town and I stand and look in the window!

More gorgeous suggestions. Thanks all.

Any thoughts/views on this? It's not a maxi, and is less casual than I was looking for, but there's something about it that I like (can't put my finger on what).

- Tailored button-front dress - Black - Ladies | H&M GB

Hi @Notmenothere about the one you posted, it looks lovely but it's polyester.

I bought a few polyester dresses a few years ago and basically found I hated wearing them. They made me sweat quickly, and the material never felt stylish or pleasant. So personally I just never consider polyester any more.
The H&M shirt dresses I posted are viscose, which IMHO is a whole different ball game. Woven viscose feels like smooth cotton and jersey viscose feels like cotton jersey, more or less.
Just something to bear in mind. In terms of style the one you posted is lovely, but it's a simple style, I bet you can find something similar in viscose, cotton, or linen.
In fact I'm going to have a look for you now on Uniqlo, as I suspect it's something they might have...

Can't find quite the right thing, although lots of nice dresses on Uniqlo. Also Next.

Have you looked at Next? They sell their own stuff plus lots of brands. And you can filter extensively. So I looked and filtered from dresses to shirt dresses to sleeveless shirt dresses and you can filter for length and colour and fabric.

What's good for you about the one you posted? The sleek shape? The plain black? The sleevelessness? Because there are a few on Next that are close but maybe don't have rhe same sleevelessness or don't come in plain black so if you can narrow down what you think you're now looking for I can do another trawl through Next. 😂

As previous poster said, Check the fabric as polyester is horrible in the heat. Pure cotton, linen or woven viscose is much cooler.