Eeek, didn't mean to start a bunfight!! Mind you, it's a nice change from worrying about Covid... 
Lordy, no, I'm not an attention-seeker! As perhaps I should have made clear, this really would be a dress for sitting around working at home (I have no clients so never see people, creative job) or in the garden (or homeschooling grr) and knowing me I'd chicken out of wearing it on the school run or even popping to the corner shop anyway.
Beach, too, absolutely, if I ever see one again...
But my issue with dresses is a bit of a tricky one, which might be worth explaining.
I'm not remotely a tradiitonal feminine shape, I WISH TO GOD I looked nice/felt comfortable in a standard pretty floaty knee-length-ish patterned or flowery summer dress, but I so do not. I am athletic build, shoulders like a rugby player, flat chest but very wide back and ribs, no hips, no waist.
Usual 'pretty' frocks look utterly absurd on me imo and I feel very uncomfortable in them.
I can't do shirt dresses as they more often than not have tie-waist-belts which don't nip in a lovely waist but sort of sit on my non-waist and make me look bulkier than I am at a size 10. I can't do wrap dresses as they pull across my wide back while simultaneously gaping at my non-existent boobage. I can't do shift dresses as I have no 'shape' for them and again they make me look wider and larger than I am (I may only be a size 10 but a tall and athletic size 10 which makes me almost hefty in a way if that makes sense. Certainly quite a masculine build).
I avoid shoulder straps of any kind, especially spaghetti straps, because my shoudlers are big and broad and again I look like a rugby player. (Also aforementioned moles on shoulders/upper arms/chest that I am VERY self-conscious about, way more so than flashing even my entire pantage to the world) .
Smock/swing dresses work therefore because they disguise my lack of curves (something I long for) and highlight my slimness (tight clothes also make me look hefty). Also I tend to be able to find them with sleeves which a lot of trad pretty sundresses don't have. Or if they DO have sleeves they're of the tea-dress variety (make me look like a rugby player) or they're shirt dresses with tricksy belts I can't pull off.
Smock dresses that are too LONG look, to me, and feel more importantly, like shrouds - just too covered-up and Amish-like (nothing wrong with that but you do get funny looks if everyone else is rocking a flippy littel sundress and you're in a knee-length, high-necked shroud)
I have a couple of lovely smock dresses that are admittedly a couple of inches longer than this one that I lived in last summer.
I had eating disorders throughout my 20s and never wore a dress as I was too self-conscious and miserable. By the time I hit my 30s I had worked out my shape and decided dresses were awful on me. Plus I couldn't afford laser treatment I need for legs (and I have awful skin that can't handle shaving or waxing) so I just lived in bloody horrible chino trousers all summer long, sweltering and sweating.
Had laser a couple of years back and it changed my life.
At 43 I care less, finally, about looking a certain way I was never able to, and have embraced my assets (legs) while still very much wanting to disguise my bad points (most of the rest of me!)
I'm slightly going off the dress (having ordered it) as I've clocked the puff sleeves and sometimes those are awful on me (sometimes not) - sorry everyone!!
Aaaanyway, this is a massively long-winded post!
Just to say the whole smock/too short thing has reasons behind it.
And I would have ZERO intention of going out and about in this dress to actually, y'know, see people and stuff.
Mind you when it hits 35 degrees plus as it did in London last July, I don't think anyone notices or cares a bit too much thigh any more, do they?!