I don't think it's just the accelerated proliferation of wide floral dresses we have to worry about eclipsing the sun this season.
The addition of fancy elasticated cuffs and necklines are on the rise now, too, usually attached to the aforementioned voluminous dresses but also accompanying blouses and shirts.
Add the fact that most of these sleeves with be excessively ballooned to start with, so the inclusion of a Mozart-esque fancy shmancy cuff will only add to the frou frou extravaganza spewing forth from the already excessive overgrowth of (often thin, transparent, crap) fabrics.
I'm wondering where this will go next, or when it will choose the dignified path of graceful extinction. And if it won't retreat, all I should ask is for some subtlety, perhaps a small touch of finery (some silk perhaps, and a lining, so that we don't have to purchase yet another garment to wear underneath it). And someone shouting out orders in manufacture (or are garments now designed by a faceless, clunky algorithm?) seems to have forgotten that women have necks and throats that don't thrive on tension and sometimes need to be able to breath and swallow food.
I like a bit of volume and waft, but it has to have been thought about. None of this excessive tat is being mulled over at any price point. You are as likely to spot it at Brora and Cabbages&Roses as you are at Primark, Next and Hush. Browsing has become something of a carnivalesque folk horror flick at this point. The flowers aren't going away, they're merely metamorphosing into a less ditsy, more robustly mature chaos of tendrils and huge flapping neon leaves.
In fact the higher end are the worst offenders.
Where next? I do appreciate that this is the mainstream to a large extent, but there are similar designs sprouting up in less visible areas of the market, even small, new and previously more minimalist businesses are going all in. It's unstoppable, no matter what the Guardian tells you. The necks are getting higher and tighter, the sleeves longer and more protuberant, and the fabrics are left wanting. Whilst this concept might come into it's own with gossamer and silk, instead we have the unnerving synthetic sheen and dubious textures of something akin to the 1980's tracing paper toilet roll you might have found in an impoverished public convenience.
Higher end price range opts for stiff shiny cotton with necklines so high and throttling the fabric creates a block shape over the chest like a collapsed shipping box.
Yes, it does look like 1970's nightwear, and no, it didn't even look good on Susan George in Lamb to the Slaughter (Tales of the Unexpected).
I think the human body has been abandoned at this point.
No longer can we excuse this 'trend' as merely a comfy alternative to restrictive lycra riddled jeans. It's much much more than that. I don't know what it is. Answers on a postcard, please.