Winter-Proof Your Dress: How To Wear Summer Dresses All Year Long

If there’s one woman who knows about dresses it’s Isabel Spearman – founder of cult Instagram account @dailydressedit where she posts pictures of dream dresses, often from niche, sustainable labels. Why dresses? For Isabel, it’s the dream one-stop outfit. ‘They’re easy. I’m always in a rush in the morning, trying to get out the door with two young children. Just putting a dress on cuts 10 minutes off my morning routine,’ she says.

Maximising time and efficiency is something Isabel has down to a fine art. She started her career working with bag designer Anya Hindmarch – ‘I learned everything I know from her’ – where she stayed for eight years, working her way up from intern to PR director, launching the I’m Not A Plastic Bag campaign in the States. After a brief interlude in India, she returned to the UK, where she ran into Samantha Cameron at a wedding, who asked Isabel if she would help her prep for the 2010 election campaign. ‘It was so exciting,’ she says. ‘I could apply the branding and marketing principles I’d learned at Anya to a person.’ When the Camerons made it into Number 10, Samantha told her, ‘Well, you can’t leave now.’ Isabel stayed for nearly six years as a special advisor – including a second general election in 2015 – a role that required meticulous organisation and a sharp eye for sending out the right message.

Today though, she’s sharing her skills with us all – using pop-ups like her Daily Dress Edit to curate a selection of multi-tasking dresses that’ll work for a Zoom call, country walk or, yes, even a party. Many of the brands have sustainability at their heart: in past pop-up edits there have been everything from a line of O Pioneers dresses made from deadstock Liberty fabric and a best-sellingcord midi-dress from British designer Alice Early, who makes her dresses in small runs and often to pre-order so as to avoid wastage.

Of course taking a sustainable approach to fashion is about more than just investing in smart labels; it’s about getting maximum wear from your wardrobe. For Isabel that means looking for dresses that you can wear all year round. ‘Especially now, because I’ve got so many summer dresses I haven’t had the chance to wear,’ she says. ‘So it’s about thinking about how to make them winter-appropriate.’

Here are her top tips for wearing a traditionally ‘summer dress’ in winter:

Add a slimline knit

‘Look on eBay for vintage Fair Isle tank tops, or there are great ones in shops now too,' she says. As to how to wear it? ‘Layer it up over a summer dress for that bit of extra warmth. And because it’s slim it’ll work under a winter coat too. I’m totally addicted.’

Choose a length that works with boots

‘My natural length is a midi or midaxi, which looks great with a knee high boot or an easy to wear flat boot or a cowboy boot,’ she says, recommending a burgundy boot in particular, which is softer than black and goes with more colours. ‘But equally these dresses also look good with a chunky loafer.’

Don’t save stand-out dresses for best

‘ Last year, I asked the London designer Mary Benson to make a red velvet dress especially for the Daily Dress edit pop-up, because I love velvet,’ says Isabel. ‘You can have your Christmas lunch in it and then put your wellies on and go for a walk.’ She insists that velvet doesn’t have to be for evening-only. ‘Daytime velvet is a really strong trend because it looks beautiful. As long as it’s a matte velvet (avoid anything too shiny) it really works with a flat boot and simple jewellery and it looks brilliant.’

Mix and match colours

‘I get a bit addicted to trying out new colour combinations for autumn,’ says Isabel. ‘So at the moment for example I’m taking all my cornflower blue summer dresses I haven’t had much of a chance to wear recently and mixing them with burgundy. You could also try mustard with a cream dress – or chocolate with beige or white.’

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