Hurrah, I have found an excuse to go sales shopping, please help me find lovely winter day dress

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

I love sales shopping but I have Too Many Enough Clothes. I have clothes and shoes for every possible occasion.....or so I thought.

But, very excitingly I have discovered that I do not possess a lovely dress/skirt for smart winter daytime wear - lunch out with inlaws, end of term concert, that kind of thing. I have lots of nice summer stuff, and some sparkly evening stuff, but all my smart winter day clothes are black work gear, and very obviously so. I have a cast-iron excuse to shop!

Can you please help me find a nice dress, or skirt & top. Size 12, pearshaped with small waist, (so fit&flare dress or A line skirt) 5'4", age 44, ideally in teal or a teal-based pattern, because it's my favourite colour. Boden-y kind of vibe but not Boden because I want something I can try on in an actual shop - can't be doing with catalogues.

And perhaps some brown knee-length boots to go with it? What do you reckon?

I'm a bif fan of Cos - how about this?

Lovely, but too "worky". Actually might think about it for work, but I want need something which isn't grey or black like everything else in my winter wardrobe.

I'm going to take a real stab in the dark and post a few suggestions!

owl dress

this dotty number?

whistles?

not teal but I saw this in store and its fab!!

Thanks Pink. I like the owls dress, and will definitely check that out in the flesh at John Lewis tomorrow, but a mite too summery, and the first Whistles number might be good - while I'm there I'll have a look for the cheetah-print one which doesn't do much for me on screen.

The Closet spotty one is lovely but I suspect it's much too short for me, I need something a bit more easy going.

From Boden the ones which indicate the sort of thing I like are:
embroidered jersey petrol
Grey but not too work-y
boring drapey jersey in the royal blue
crossover knitted
pansy print in sage green
teal-licious

But some of them they don't have in my size, and many of them won't suit me in the flesh, and I can't face fannying around with ordering 6 and returning 5. So, yeah, anything that might be available on Oxford St/Westfield that's a bit like them, or maybe even slightly less dull and middle aged would be lovely thanks.

I'll start the trip with Cos, White Stuff concessions and Whistles to check out the helpful suggestions above, and I promise faithfully to come back and link.

Anybody got any thoughts on whether I should go for brown boots with them?

Having promised faithfully, I now return to tell you what I bought - after so long a break that all the Boden Sale links in my previous post are now defunct.

I bought
this!

Yeah, it's not very exciting, but what with one thing and another I didn't get to go to Oxford Street, and it was in the Oxfam I was passing, and I think it will go with my dusty blue velvet jacket. I think I still want to get some brown knee length boots before the sale stock finally disappears from all the shops, and having spent a whole 8 quid on the skirt, I now have more of a boot budget.