My Secret Trick for Finding the Best Spring and Summer Dresses

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(Image credit: Collage Vintage)

So, to preface, I'm going through a bit of a dress phase. In fact, I go through it every year when late winter hits, after I've been getting by on solely jeans, sweaters, and coats for months. But this year, it seems to be particularly aggressive, perhaps because I'm prepping for my early March wedding, and my wardrobe for the week of and honeymoon after will primarily consist of dresses.

Ever since the New Year began, I've been stalking the new arrivals of e-tailers like Net-a-Porter, Matches Fashion, and Shopbop for the latest dresses for spring and summer to appear, and in doing so, I made a discovery. If you search for the word broderie, you'll be met with a plethora of beautiful broderie anglaise (French for "English embroidery") dresses.

The Britannica definition calls it a form of "whitework embroidery in which round or oval holes are pierced in the material (such as cotton), and the cut edges then overcast; these holes, or eyelets, are grouped in a pattern that is further delineated by simple embroidery stitches on the surrounding material." In other words, start your spring and summer dress search with that term and you'll be met with lovelier options than you'll know what to do with. Or, just shop my picks below.

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Allyson Payer
Senior Editor

Allyson is a senior editor for Who What Wear. She joined the company in 2014 as co-founder Katherine Power's executive assistant and over the years has written hundreds of stories for Who What Wear. Prior to her career in fashion, Allyson worked in the entertainment industry at companies such as Sony Pictures Television. Allyson is now based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She holds a BFA in theater. Her path to fashion may not have been linear, but based on the number of fashion magazines she collected as a child and young adult, it was meant to be.