If you had £1,000 to spend on just one dress....

[thenightsky]

and one dress alone, what would you buy?

I've been browsing cocktail dresses on net-a-porter and it got me thinking. Some of the dresses on there are 3k and more.

If you were to buy a dress worth 1k what would you get that was 'classical' and would last for years (talking about 20 years)?

And imagine forking out 1k for a dress and realising a year down the line that it looked dated and was an awful mistake!

This

Loving yer work tether

It would have to be a Roland Mouret for me.

this but in a different colour

The key with vintage is the wearer has to be a different vintage to the dress.

So if your are 50 and wearing a dress that you bought in your 20's you are probably going to look a little bit off no matter how stunning you are and gorgeous the dress.

However it'd look fab on your 20 year old daughter.

I'm afraid that if you wore it to every "do" for the next 20 years, all you would get would be a lot of rolled eyes and the comment "She's wearing that bloody dress again - hasn't she got anything else?" Never underestimate the bitchiness of other women - "How lovely to see you in that dress again, it really does suit you..."

And I think what The Queen says about vintage...I certainly couldn't wear some of the clothes from my yoof, but my DD1 would look great in them.

I love that asymmetric Valentino that Tethers linked to.

If only I was 20, a size 10 and very rich it'd be a no brainer.

I have a Gucci wrap dress - it wasn't quite £1,000 but was v. expensive. Cost per wear is probably less than some of my cheaper dresses because it is perfect for lunch, posh business dos, even funerals where I don't want to wear black but still look respectful.

So if I every had that much money to spend on a dress again I'd probably go for something like that.

Passing a lovely dress down to a DD would be a lovely idea Unfortunately my DD is a completely different size to me.

I think it is about quality of fabric too. Eg a heavy silk jersey will still be in good shape in 20 years.

I think Queenofthedead is spot on with her vintage rule.

My mum had a silk psychedelic print dress from the 70s, which in the 80s looked dated on her but I wore it in the early 90s to a party and got loads of nice comments! Wish I'd kept it....

For me, the poshest dresses I buy are from Hobbs, with the shoes and cardi to go with it, hopefully in the sale, so dress for £80ish. They are lovely quality, material and cut. I once bought one from Gerad Darel which was stunning, I don't know how expensive they are nowadays.

But £1000. No way.

I've always loved Missoni. My favourites from the A/W 2011 collection are numbers 8, 23, 34 and 39. Missoni never dates, though it does fall to bits - fragile fabrics. Think they're well over a grand :(