Where to buy a classy, but not totally boring special-occasion dress?

There’s always Lane Bryant. Some of these are very cute and on sale:


@Ruken, that site Gudrun Sjödén is incredible!

Yes, that’s going to be a crapshoot - though evenings should be cool.

Here’s a selection from a seller called “Alex Evenings” who is marketing through Zappo’s. I see some pretty nice dresses there - enough to tempt me, who hasn’t worn a dress in ten years nor stayed up later than 8:30 p.m. for almost that long.

J. Peterman Company – The J. Peterman Company (jpeterman.com) ?

I get the catalog and always look at it, mostly for the fun copy (written by Elaine Benes, of course), but I’ve never been satisfied with anything I ever bought from them. Those drawings are idealized. If you go to the website, sometimes they have a photograph of the item, and that gives a better idea of what the thing really looks like. But even on sale, their stuff is waaaay too expensive. My 2 cents.