The wedding-guest dress you wear twelve times

The numbers on occasionwear are bleak. Surveyed wardrobes put the average wear-count of a wedding-guest outfit below two. It is the fastest fashion most considered dressers ever buy, because the brief — photogenic, novel, specific — is a trap.

We fit occasion dresses against a different brief: where else will this go? Before a Sound Dress leaves the studio, we have usually planned its next three outings with the customer. Under a coat at a winter dinner. With flat sandals at someone else’s garden party. With the Harbour Blazer at a daytime ceremony.

Colour does most of the work. Rust, moss and ink recur in our occasion pieces because they photograph richly at weddings but read as simply elegant everywhere else. The dress that whispers at a restaurant is the dress that gets re-worn; the dress that announces a wedding does not.

If you are shopping for a specific date, book the Occasion Fitting and bring the invitation. The fitting fee comes off the dress, and the dress comes with a plan.