Where can I get a petite summer dress that doesn't look like a sack?

[Hathor]

Help smallish people!
Am petite (shortish and curvyish). All the petite spring/summer dresses are empire line (so will look like lampshade on me), or black and grey (Principles) or soo frumpy (M&S).
Going to Portugal at Easter. Need something pretty, smart casual and preferably online.
Any ideas?

Any other shorties on-line today?

Next? - their Havana collection has a v pretty brown print dress here , also some shirt dresses, skirt/top combos etc, most of which come in petite. The brighter green dress and the one with the sash here are pretty too.

Try 50s style ones with a fuller skirt - Laura Ashley and Monsoon have a few.
Also Miss Selfridge

I am a shorty and , whilst I can offer no sensible advice (as usual) I would like to add to this thread what I consider to be fashion quote of the week. From, well, let's just call it a national newspaper (of sorts) a quote regarding smock dresses:

"You buy a smock dress thinking you will look like Sienna Miller and you end up looking like Windy Miller from Camberwick Green).

Says it all as far as I'm concerned. (guess who spent a very disheartening day shopping for a nice dress..)

rofl re Windy Miller
so true

Oh MrsB thank you thank you - the Next one is lovely and has a waist (YES!!). You have no idea how long I have been looking and getting nowhere.
The Miss Selfridge one pretty too but I will look short and wide in this.

we need cod

Is cod short? I bet she has nice dresses.

I like those MrsB but DH will say I look like a grandmother

Something brighter and less ironic

Monsoon?
5os-shaped dresses normally have a fair whack of irony tbh
Fat Face?
La Redoute and Vertbaudet both normally have good dresses but there are pages and pages so you need to wade a bit.
Debenhams?
Cod doesn't do dresses with waists but may have some sources. Actually she'll say Kew but they do err on the long side.

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Strangely enough, Next Directory have a nice one in their Summer supplement. It has a green and white pattern with a fuchsia pink satin bow at the waist. It has a bit of a retro look, without looking like a 1950s fancy dress costume. As it is roughly knee-length, I feel it would suit those of us who may be vertically challenged.

And not a bit of smocking in sight!

this one?
wish she'd stand still so I could see the shape of it properly

Grumpy and MrsB - are you joking? The dress is pretty, but that bow

...is detachable

That's the one, Mrs B. Inside the actual catalogue there is a better picture. I agree, it's so hard to see what they really look like when the models are contorted into so many strange poses. Usually wouldn't touch Next with a bargepole, but this Summer's supp has a few decent bits in. (I get the Directory because I have been getting it since about 1990, and have just never bothered to cancel it! Good for occasional housey-type things, anyway)

I like that 'Stick Of Rock' dress on the Fat Face website, and I admit to being a big fan of Kew, although I will have to drive 1 1/2 hours back to Cambridge to visit the store. (GOD, I miss Cambridge).The most upmarket shop in the town here is 'Bon Marche'