spruced by marlene

When I went to see my friend Mirjana at the Closed headquarters in Hamburg recently – I’ll be showing you the pictures from my visit soon, but let me tell you this already: I wanted to pull up in a van and steal all of the amazing furniture from their showrooms for our new apartment –, it happened to be the first truly hot day of the summer. Within 15 minutes of arriving I saw at least five different women in white summer dresses, Mirjana among them. I was envious of every single one of them.

There is no other piece of clothing that looks more like summer. The white dress is like a dollop of cream on top of a bowl of June strawberries. The vacation from the usual blackgreyblue wardrobe. A little bit impractical, because you actually need to stay away from stawberries as far as possible, except, of course, if you eat with surgical precision. But if you do manage to get through lunch without major spills, the white dress is impeccable and floats above any heatwave.

I often forget that I own at least three white dresses, because I feel I should be tanned before I can wear one of them. By which time summer’s over. So that’s just silly. And anyway, a white dress looks unimpeachable with any skin tone.

And in all shapes. A shirt dress paired with gold jewelry and Converse is the ideal uniform for (pretending to be a) nerdy galerina. A floaty maxi dress with broderie anglaise makes it look like you hang out with Kate Moss on Ibiza. An A-line dress lets you play dress-up as Marilyn Monroe in The seven-year itch. And what other piece of clothing allows you to do THAT?

I will probably never get used to the disparity between fashion seasons and actual seasons, but it does have some advantages. Such as the summer sales starting at the beginning of summer instead of at the end.

Mirjana’s pretty dress from Closed has just gone on sale and you can find it here.

Most of my other picks from an unbelievable number of white dresses are also on sale. Because there were so many of them, and I couldn’t make up my mind, here’s a selection of both clean and romantic styles. You’ll have to be quick to get your (freshly washed) hands on any of them. White dresses are red hot.

| Cotton t-shirt dress from COS |

| Poplin shirt dress from EQUIPMENT |

| Off-the-shoulder rayon dress from TIBI |

| A-line cotton dress with broderie anglaise from VIVIENNE WESTWOOD ANGLOMANIA |

| Front-tied cotton shirt dress from 3.1 PHILLIP LIM |

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| Rayon midi dress from MAJE |

| Cotton mix mini dress with broderie anglaise from IRO |

| Cotton dress with floral embroidery and lace insets from ULLA JOHNSON |

| Off-the-shoulder chiffon dress with pleating from SELF-PORTRAIT |

| Rayon slip dress with broderie anglaise from IRO |