What do all the different terms for women’s dresses actually mean in terms of what they look like and such? I get that you can divide them up between casual and formal, like something you’d where to the beach or store vs to work, but I’ve heard terms like
Church Dress
Club Dress
Cocktail Dress
Special Occasion Dress
Party Dress
Prom Dress
Bridesmaid dress
Social Dress
Career Dress
I’m assuming that there’s a lot of overlap with different stores using different terms, and a “Club Dress” is designed to be somewhat provocative, but what’s the real-life difference say between a party dress and a prom dress, or a cocktail dress and a special occasion dress?
I’ll take a stab at it. Looking at the list, it seems to me the level of sexiness weighs in heavily, as does the level of “frilliness.”
Church Dress- Modest. No low cut neckline or high hemline. Probably more frills and lace than a career dress. Could be flowery.
Club Dress- I haven’t heard this term but I guess it depends on if “club” refers to a nightclub, a social club (and then if it’s daytime or nighttime or the type of club figures in) or “country club” which I guess would be dressy but could vary according to the activity.
Cocktail Dress- Sexy. Think “little black dress.” Revealing but probably not too much frills like lace and bows. Sleeker than that.
Special Occasion Dress- Sounds like a term for those who don’t dress up much. Some ladies just have one fancy dress and that’s what they wear whenever attending a dress-up event.
Party Dress- To me, this sounds like a cocktail dress but not necessarily sexy. Just fancy in some way.
Prom Dress- These used to be very fancy, floor length and would require a special purchase. Too fancy to wear a dress you’d likely already have in your closet.
Bridesmaid dress- All the bridesmaids have to wear the dress the bride picks out.
Social Dress- I guess this could be frillier than career dress. Beyond that, I don’t know. I guess it could depend on what type of socializing the person tends to do because an out on the town dress and an ice cream social dress would differ in sexiness.
Career Dress- You’d want to look like a “serious” person. Not too many frills nor too low cut.
“Clubwear” generally refers to nightclub outfits, so I’m thinking that a “club dress” is probably a cocktail dress turned up to 11: glamorous and overtly sexy.
“Special occasion dress” often means REALLY special, like something you’d wear to an awards gala or a White House ball. Generally floor length and quite dramatic-looking. What used to be called an “evening gown”.
“Bridesmaid dress” sometimes has connotations of “fancy but somewhat frumpy/unflattering”, because it’s very difficult to have a single dress design that’s really becoming on several different people.
If you cross a career dress with a party dress, you get a church dress.
Yesterday afternoon I heard a radio announcer talking about Academy Award ceremony watching parties in people’s homes–how men dress up in tuxedos and women put on their “night gowns” so that they’re all decked out for the party. Apparently he was confused and mixed up “night gown” and “evening gown”.
And the correct answer, no matter which style she’s wearing, is always “No Dear, that dress doesn’t make your butt look big.” (unless that is the effect she is going for)
At a tourist shop down by the beach they sell little signs with cute sayings. My favorite says “I love the beach. The ocean makes my butt look smaller!”
If I ask you whether a particular dress or other garment looks good, and it is in fact unflattering, I damn well want to know that before I leave the house. I hate this little ha ha women just want to be told they look good b.s.
No, you don’t have to be rude about it. “You look like a total cow” is unwanted and insulting. But something like “Hm, I don’t think that one shows you at your best. How about your red dress? You look like a million bucks in that one” is both 1) not mean and 2) helpful in keeping me from looking bad without realizing it.
And if you do phrase it tactfully like that and she still takes offense? Then that’s her problem, not yours.
How did this thread get derailed into “women, can’t live with 'em, can’t live without 'em” so fast?
Retailers are trying to sell dresses to women who want them for certain occasions, so they design for the common occasions women wear dresses for, and attempt to name them after those occasions, so women can locate them more easily. Geez, how hard can this be to understand?
There are degrees of sexiness and modesty, formality and casualness, proper to most occasions. At least in my opinion there is.
Although it is far more complicated than that list of dresses.
Last funeral Mass gig I did all the women were dressed in the tightest, shortest black dresses they could squeeze themselves into, regardless of age or obesity, and then decked themselves with all the jewelry they owned. Old Italian Catholic family. Those were their combined “special occasion” and “church” dresses I guess.
Or maybe they were just the only black dresses they had. For many women nowadays, the only black dress they own is a “little black dress”. A far cry from the days when many first- or second-generation American Catholic women never wore anything but black dresses!
