Sitting here eating breakfast and looking for something watchable on TV I happened across a talk show that was discussing dresses and current fashion.
Once again, every selection was sleeveless.
What the heck?
It’s winter. It’s cold over most of the US. No wonder women are constantly complaining they’re cold, they’re half naked! Except for those of a certain age having “power surges” and a “personal summer” but that’s only a small slice of the womankind.
Also, some of us like to wear sleeves. Maybe we have horrific scarring or tattoos we don’t want to share with the public or coworkers or are prone to rashes or psoriasis or other skin conditions we’d rather not display. Maybe we’re prone to feeling chilled. Or maybe just personal preference, you know? Some folks like sleeves and they give styling options.
This “trend” seems to have been running for a couple years now. Surely there is room in fashion for alternatives?
Where I work, dress code is to wear two layers, so a sleeveless blouse under a cardigan or blazer works better/can be more comfortable than sleeved. Even in winter.
My first thought when I saw the thread was Michelle Obama and her beautiful toned arms. She is a role model for a lot of women, so maybe that is playing a part?
I must say I haven’t noticed this here in Floriduh, the warmer section of Hell where you’d expect such a thing. But then again, I don’t go sleeveless because they keep my office like a goddamned meat locker.
I’m a relatively easy to find dress size, but I imagine that finding a dress that fits through the hips and waist and bust and shoulders and arms would be like winning the lottery. If you make the dress sleeveless, you only have to hit the hips, waist, and bust, and that’s challenging enough! Dresses with sleeves are only for people with tailors.
Wouldn’t sleeveless dresses be more flexible, fashion-wise, for women? They could complement it with a shell of any color or sleeve length for varying effects. So maybe it’s not a bad thing to separate the sleeves from the dress.
Yep. She’s the culprit. Since Michelle Obama’s been rocking those awesome arms, dress designers have been increasing their output of sleeveless dresses. Which I would have greatly appreciated in my 20s, but as I no longer have awesome arms, my gruntle is dissed.
Actually, designers pretty much loathe sleeves in general - they’re expensive in fabric and in cutting and sewing time, they don’t move with the body well unless you’re using stretch fabrics, and they’re perceived as “ruining the line of the dress”. So I think they were more than eager to jump on the sleeveless trend…but women are more willing to buy them now since Michelle broke the sleeveless in business and business casual wear barrier. 10 years ago, you’d pretty much have to wear a cardigan or three quarter sleeve under your sleeveless dress at work. Today, you can get away with a sleeveless in many workplaces.
It’s seasonal where I work. In summer the office air conditioning is chilly, and in winter the office heater bakes us. I find wearing sleeveless tops and having a cardigan/jacket/wrap at my desk at all times to be the best way to dress at work. It blows my mind when I’m sleeveless on a frozen January day and someone asks me why I’m not freezing to death. Well mainly because the office heating is set to 80 degrees so it’s not at all cold in here!
Being the possessor of both extra-long monkey arms and shoulders like a Viking (why, yes, I am a delicate, feminine flower thankyouverymuch), I appreciate the heck out of the sleeveless trend. If I desire more covering (because it’s chilly, or because of fashion, or because I don’t feel like explaining a billion times that the big ugly red splotch I’m sporting on my arm is from an unfortunate bacon-related incident over the weekend, or whatever, I can throw on a cardigan or a blazer and have a perfectly work-appropriate outfit.
I can’t even find ladies’ shirts that fit me properly, so finding a sleeved dress that fits properly would be well-nigh impossible. If a shirt fits my body, then inevitably either the shoulders are tight and/or the sleeves hit me at three-quarter length (even if they’re supposed to be full length). If the sleeves and shoulders fit, then I’m swimming in the body and there’s a good chance the neckline is. . . rather more revealing than intended as a result. Mostly I buy shirts that fit the body and are generously cut in the shoulders and then wear the sleeves rolled up to the elbow - which isn’t the most stylish look, but at least disguises the fact that the goddamn sleeves are too short (which in turn gives me some extra shoulder space so I don’t do a Bruce Banner).
I hear ya, but my pet peeve is strapless wedding dresses. When did strapless wedding dresses become the style? IMO, in almost every case, they are totally unflattering. For heaven’s sake, I weigh 107 lbs and strapless dresses gave ME fat rolls. (My dress was a halter-style that tied behind the neck.) I have only seen one strapless wedding dress that looked absolutely stunning and that was my best friend’s dress. Every other strapless wedding dress makes the bride look like 20 lbs fatter.
Totally agree. Physically not flattering, and imo, not classy or appropriate for the occasion. Even casual strapless dresses remind me of someone who’s just wrapped a towel around herself after a shower.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who hates the no-sleeves trend. I have batwings that are mostly resistant to toning, and I’ve always had large upper arms (like a goddamn chicken wing).
Can I buy a cocktail dress with sleeves? No. No, I cannot. (I did buy a nifty sleeve contraption of sheer black material, which helps). Can I buy a blouse with sleeves? Mmmm, sometimes. But if the outfit has sleeves, and it’s spring/summer, they are those damned cap sleeves, another trend which needs to die already. It only looks good on women with tiny little toned arms. Otherwise, the sleeves cut across the biggest part of your arm, and any arm flop is magnified (I’m looking at you, old lizard ladies in Florida).
And, no, I don’t want to wear a cardigan or ugly floppy “shrug” over my nice dress. I want to show off the dress or blouse. Also, the proportions are generally wrong, and I won’t want to buy a “dress”-length cardigan just so I don’t look frumpy. Finally, I tend to be warm-natured, so another layer isn’t usually what I want.
And t-shirts. You know what I do now that t-shirts have cap sleeves? I buy old t-shirts (or recycle them), cut off the arms, and sew them to the bottom of the existing t-shirt cap sleeves for a nifty layered look. Voila, elbow-length sleeves. Easy enough to hand-sew if you must.
I hate sleeveless and I can’t wait for this trend to die. Not because I’m self-conscious about my arm flab, that’s just a product of aging. It’s because of the stretch marks on my upper arms courtesy of a bout with prednisone when I was a preteen. Not exactly something I want to show off.
I would have thought that the wedding dress worn by the princess formerly known as Kate Middleton would have started a new trend, but it seems not to have.
So I did a little research using the only things I had available to me, the Fall 2012 and Fall 2015 issues of The Knot magazine. For those who don’t know, The Knot is a quarterly 600+ page wedding publication. It features a catalog-like section in the back called the Look Book. I counted up the wedding dresses advertised in the Look Book (not including brides maids, flower girls, MOTB, etc). Some interesting results:
Sleeveless does not include strapless dresses.
I counted off-the-shoulder styles as cap sleeves (there were very few).
The percentage of dresses with sleeves of some sort has tripled. And the percentage of strapless dresses being advertised has plummeted.
I also noted that the cover of the Fall 2012 issue featured a strapless dress while the cover of the Fall 2015 issue featured long, lace sleeves.
Almost all of the decrease in advertising came from the strapless category and the one shoulder category. Advertising in the sleeved categories increased a tiny bit. And, of course, I do not know if actual sales percentages correlate with advertising percentages. But it does look like advertisers believe that strapless dresses are no longer as popular as they once were.
