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Dainty florals from US brand Self-Portrait.
*Zoe Walker Ahwa is Stuff’s style editor and the co-founder of Ensemble
ADVICE: If you’re a woman of a certain age who works in an office with the slightest interest in fashion, it’s likely you’ll have your own small collection of midi floral dresses.
It is a style that has come to define the moment, worn and beloved by everyone from the Princess of Wales to that stylish person you always see at your local cafe each morning: easy, pretty, able to be dressed up and down with sneakers or heels.
I don’t have the official stats, but looking around my own office, the streets and the shops, it is clear that the modest cover up has become as ubiquitous as black work pants – available in designer boutiques, chain stores and vintage shops. And probably plentiful in your own wardrobe already.
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It is New Zealand’s unofficial office uniform, and the backbone of a certain strain of New Zealand fashion. Local brands like Kate Sylvester, Juliette Hogan, Lost and Led Astray, Kowtow, Trelise Cooper, Augustine, and Max will always have a pretty floral on offer, whether it’s abstract and painterly or small ditsy florals like an English wild garden.
But, shock horror: in the UK, murmurings of the death of the floral midi. The Guardian recently reported on the department store John Lewis’ decision to drop the popular style from its latest collection, with the store’s fashion director Queralt Ferrer saying they had decided to “move on”.
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Classic or playful, florals can be styled in various ways.
“That [ditsy florals] was one of the main items that we thought we’ve got to move on from. It’s not easy because customers love them, but it’s a trend that has been around for too long and they were everywhere across the high street,” she told the Guardian.
Their customer still loves them, Ferrer said, but “we don’t want her to just keep buying what she already owns”.
I’m not a fan of declaring something as ‘over’ or that we need to move on from (even skinny jeans; you do you if that’s your thing!), but Ferrer makes a good point. How many floral midi dresses are too many floral midi dresses? I would say that if they bring you joy and you wear them regularly, the limit does not exist.
In the UK, John Lewis wants to encourage its customers to try more graphic prints and separates. That’s fashion speak for trousers, shirts, jackets and the like, and if one was being cynical about it, you could say that the ploy to declare the death of the floral midi towards these items is a way to get customers to buy and spend more than on a one-and-done dress.
If bitsy florals are no longer for you, there are plenty of alternatives. At New York Fashion Week last month, animal print of all forms was everywhere, while Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan’s Valentino gown at the recent BAFTAs is an example of a graphic floral print with punch.
SHOP THE LOOK
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Floral midi dresses from (left to right) Juliette Hogan, Kowtow, Witchery and Twenty-seven Names
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