Shall I keep this dress?

[PortiaFimbriata]

Formal work environment.
Hobbs short sleeved formal straight tunic dress for £12 from local chazza
Perfect fit, perfect colour, perfect condition. Very flattering in a sixties Pierre Cardin kind of way.

But...
above the knee
dry clean only

I'm 49 and a Hobbs size 12.

Do I keep it and wear it with black opaques in the winter and take my chances on a wool wash? Realistically speaking it's going to need a wash every wear unless I go for some kind of armpit protector option.

Fully lined and tailored and a mix of fabrics which is what makes me twitchy about the delicates wash: I'm normally quite gung ho.

Perfect fit AND very flattering? Definately sounds worth chancing a cool wool wash - but then I think ‘dry clean only’ is hugely overused.

Wear it once. Wash it. If it's fucked...£ per wear is £12
Wear it once. Wash it. It is fine. £ per wear reduces.
Wear it once. Dry clean it. Look at it each time in the wardrobe and think...nah...can't be arsed. £ per wear £18/20 (cost + dry cleaning)

I personally would give it a go.

But it depends if the £12 was bank breaking...

Sounds fab and worth the risk! I love a good charity shop find!

Often the dry clean only thing is because the lining is a PITA to iron.

Yes I think you're right about having a punt on the delicates wash. What's putting me off is a) if I'm not prepared to wear it without opaques then I won't get to wear it until October b) bright blue with black opaques is not necessarily a great look and I can't think of another colour of opaques which would work and be suitable for formal environment.

Delicates wash should be fine. I might be misreading the label, but it looks like polyester and viscose.

You ask if you should keep it, but what’s the downside? Wear it for work and if you decide you don’t like it then redonate it. Or eBay it and you might even make a profit.

Are you sure a bit of fake tan won't allow you to wear bear legged?

Bare legged....Obviously. Unless you are in urgent need of shaving and toenail clipping....

I have knee display anxiety.

I'm sure for a dress you'd get at least 3 wears out of it before it needing cleaned.
I'd go for it and just wear sheer tights and nude coloured or blue shoes with it. I bought an amazing new Jaeger blue dress from our local charity shop for £30 and I totally nailed it in the interview I wore it in.

I'd give it a go and wash it myself.

Or you can wear a base layer underneath and then wash it less often?

Grey tights?

Navy tights?

Exactly. I can't believe people don't already do this unless it's hot. No way am I washing a dress after every wear even if it's machine washable.

Panty liners under the arms!

It's all synthetic bar the cotton trim, it should be fine in the wool wash. I think they bung on the dry clean label because it makes it look higher end.

How about patterned grey or brown tights!? Should also go with navy, but maybe less formal.

The dry clean label might be because the dress fabric will shrink marginally and the lining won’t, and will hang out of the dress by a couple of mm.

Put in some armpit protectors like these or these and wear it with dark grey, navy or purple tights.

And embrace spit cleaning

Yes that's my fear. There's a good inch of dress fabric below the point where the lining ends though, which gives me a bit of leeway. I think dress shields may be the answer: I don't have any T shirts which I could wear under without them showing.

I didn't know that armpit protectors existed.
But genuinely I can wear a dress 3-4 times without underarms smelling. I use Mitchum antiperspirant which stops me having sweaty armpits all day.

Obvs I meant spot cleaning, not spit cleaning, but this could amount to the same thing.

Honestly, just wear a top underneath then you can wear the dress without washing at all unless you spill something on it.