Nothing is more feminine than a nice dress. Comfortable, diverse, and pretty dresses are a wonderful choice, from bumming around the house to attending an important event. With such a variety of designs, women sometimes find themselves overwhelmed when attempting to choose a dress. As with all clothing, the dress that will look the best is one in which the wearer is most comfortable. These bits of obvious information aside, let’s look deeper into some different fashion ideas for dresses.

Women differ in shapes and sizes. Because of this, a dress which may look stunning on one woman may look horrible on another. Understanding how different dress cuts look on different body shapes will help immensely. The ideal feminine figure is medium-to-tall height, moderate build, and an hourglass shape. It is ideal because only about 2% of the female population actually has a body like this. Different cuts help achieve a visual effect allowing more women to look like ‘ideal’.

If a woman has short legs and a long torso, she will want to create the visual effect of having longer legs and a shorter torso. To achieve this, she will want to choose dresses that draw the eye upward. She can choose dresses with darker bottoms, higher waists, and narrow or a-line cuts. She will also want to accessorize these types of dresses by wearing jewelry and scarves.

For women with balanced body shapes, dresses with one color from the top to the bottom, ones which are fitted through the waist and flow outward, and thin belts are the best styles. Again, a woman would want to accessorize this type of dress using jewelry and scarves which draw the eye upward.

A woman with long legs and a short torso would, likewise, dress differently from the above-mentioned body shapes. She would want to choose dresses which draw the eye downward. She can achieve this by wearing dresses with prints or lighter colors on the bottoms, dresses with a fitted waists and flowing skirts, and simple necklines. Jewelry and scarves that are medium to long lengths help draw the eye downward. Pinstripes, empire and high waists, and wide belts should all be avoided, as they draw unwanted attention to the “wrong” places. Once a woman determines which general cuts and colors work well for her body shape, she should decide which styles and colors are appropriate for her age, skin color, and situation.

Color plays a huge role in choosing a dress. Dresses come in every color and pattern imaginable. In the workplace, conservative is best. A woman who wants to be taken seriously should generally wear neutral colors—blacks, browns, ivories, greens, and so on—in her dresses, and use her jewelry and scarves to add flair and character. An outfit which most workplaces would find acceptable is a nice tailored maroon blazer worn over a khaki-colored dress, and accessorized with turquoise jewelry. She must avoid over-accessorizing her dress. Modesty in accessories and cosmetics is best. On the other hand, a young woman out for a night-out may wear any assortment of brightly colored dresses and jewelry, depending on her taste. A woman with an olive skin tone looks better in dresses with bold colors, such as magenta, whereas a lighter-skinned woman may look better in a yellow dress. Situation and skin tone both have large impacts on what color of dress will look best on each woman. In the same vein as color, women must choose dresses appropriate for their respective ages. A young woman can wear dresses with lower necklines and higher cuts but if an older woman will dress like that, it will look anything but inappropriate.

Dresses come with all types of necklines, waists, lengths, and cuts. Necklines vary from plunging, which look best on small-breasted women, to round and square necklines. The neckline of a dress has the power to make an otherwise unassuming dress look unique and stunning. It is well worth experimenting with different types of necklines and accessorizing each with different types of necklaces. A plunging neckline can be paired well with a long necklace. This breaks up the monotony of the exposed skin. A squared neckline would look best with a shorter necklace, or one with different strands of beads wrapped around the neck. Strong necklines, such as those created by a dress hanging on only one shoulder, should be worn without a necklace.

A dress’s waist creates a visual waistline for the woman. Generally, a woman accessorizes the waist of a dress with belts and scarves. A woman with a wider waist and smaller bust would want to wear a thinner belt and a fitted waist. Conversely, a woman with a naturally narrow waist would want to wear a fitted waist and thinner belt.

The skirt of a dress can dramatically affect its appropriateness for different social settings, as well as add visual interest to the piece. Skirts can be fitted, such as a pencil skirt, flow outward, such as an a-line skirt, short, long, angularly cut, fluted, and so on. The key is to remember that the more dramatic a dress, fewer accessories is needed for it. Dresses with short skirts and dramatic cuts are best served for night life, while more traditional cuts are best for the workplace. This does not mean a dress with a dramatic cut cannot be worn at work, though. It highly depends on the woman, where she works, and how sophisticated the accessories are.

Honestly, there are a lot of dress fashion ideas out there. There is an unlimited supply of cuts, colors, and accessories so the best way to know which fashion and style will work for you is simply to go out there and see for yourself!

For some, fashion is what adorns models who strut their stuff on the runways and catwalks of the world. For others, fashion is the way they express themselves during different points in their days or lives. For still others, fashion is nothing more than an identifier, a means for people trying to align themselves with a certain type of crowd. The word ‘fashion’ comes from the Latin word facere, meaning ‘to make.’ In the end, fashion is what one makes of it. Everyone has his or her own sense of style, and the dominant sense of style becomes ‘fashion.’ The most important aspect of fashion is that it is ever-changing.

The first question, then, is what causes fashion to change? What acts as the driving force to shift the dominant perspective on style? More often than not, an important person or event shapes fashion attitudes for the general population. For example, hoop skirts became en vogue after Princess Joan of Portugal began wearing them to hide an unwanted pregnancy. The 18th century custom of wearing huge wigs came about as a means to show the wearer was syphilis-free (the treatments for syphilis caused baldness). In recent memory, people emulated Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by donning feminine suits with pillbox hats. For men, wearing baggy pants and displaying boxer shorts originates from inner-city poverty and prison culture, where clothes were ill-fitting and belts unavailable. These examples help show that fashion is reactionary. This means often charismatic figures, social and economic conditions, and upheaval cause people to consider one thing or another to be fashionable. Despite this, fashion starts at the bottom; the top translates it, and sends it trickling back down to the bottom.

Fashion designers have a direct impact on helping something come into, or go out of, fashion. Design houses, such as Chanel, Gucci, Armani, and Vera Wang present their designs during fashion events, such as New York’s Fashion Week. Fashion designers create garment art, which is displayed by runway models. This is the step in the process whereby which color and cuts are “chosen” to come into fashion. An ordinary person would have great difficulty purchasing a design right off the runway, not only because these designs tend to be over-the-top, but also due to the fact that only a handful of these garments exist. After the runway presentation, designers create looks inspired by those seen on the runway, so that these looks can be worn by the consumer more readily in every-day life. First at design house stores, then at high-end retail stores, and, eventually, at warehouse stores, fashion trickles down in truth-to-design, quality of construction, and price. This trickle-down effect is the reason why fashion moves much more quickly in urban centers and among the upper-class to wealthy. It is also the reason why inspecting the look and quality of a garment gives the inspecting party a fairly accurate indicator of the wearer’s position in society and his or her values. Fashion magazine editors, movie and television wardrobe departments, and fashion consultants work hand-in-hand with fashion designers to bring the current perception of ‘fashion’ to the general population.

Editors of magazines, such as Vogue, familiarize the magazines’ readers with the developments in this world. These publications reach the population who takes an active interest in fashion, whether they can afford the looks they see or not. This is the place where future fashion trends first come to light by permitting the readers to form informed opinions as to which colors and design trends will become available. Wardrobe departments see to it that characters in movies and television shows represent the population segments to which the characters belong. Take, for example, the NBC sitcom Community. Jeff, the arrogant disbarred attorney, boasts $6000 suits, whereas Britta, the 1990s alternative-culture throwback, wears an assortment of leather jackets, simple blue jeans, and plain shirts. The wardrobe department shows the viewer how those in positions of affluence should dress, as well as how a late twenty-something Radiohead fan would dress. The wardrobe departments for shows such as CBS’s The Big Bang Theory likewise solidifies the cultural understanding of how “nerds” dress, versus show “normal” people choose to clothe themselves.

Fashion consultants act in the realm between fashion designers and fashion publications by creating stylized fashions for celebrities and people of status, especially when attending red carpet events. Fashion designers may stumble over one another to adorn a starlet for The Oscars, due to the high level of fashion publicity that comes with these events. It is the fashion designers’ job to dress the celebrity in a manner which coincides with that specific celebrity’s look, that is at the same time different and eye-catching. These fashion consultants wield a great deal of power over public perception because the general population looks to stars as on the edge of the next trend and as people to emulate.

At the heart of it, though, the Latin root from which fashion derives its name has it right; fashion is what you make of it. It is a statement. For those who decide to wear nothing but sneakers, blue jeans, and t-shirts, they tend to make the statement that they are down-to-earth, want to be judged by the content of their character, or do not want to stand out from the crowd. For many people, fashion is a way to associate themselves with a certain crowd or subculture, such as punks, goths, skater, and so on. Others wear certain designs and styles to show their “respectability.”

Mark Twain is famous for stating that people should not be judged by their clothes, but that no one takes the naked man seriously. In society, there are certain fashions that are “acceptable,” and certain fashions that are not. These instances become most apparent when the wearer commits a faux pas. Certain clothing one may wear for a date is not always appropriate for, say, a job interview. Even though fashion is what you make of it, the wearer still lives in a society where he or she is judged. At the bottom of it, though, that is the motivating factor behind fashion: the quest to be categorized and judged.

Have you ever heard the saying ‘head over heels in love’? Well, it doesn’t always refer to a woman’s love of a man. It may refer to a much stronger love – a woman’s love of trendy shoes. Women across the world have always been love-sick over these trends. For this article, let’s talk about the shoe trends from last year to this year.

In the fall, boot trends are always the thing to watch. Many women were very glad because comfortable flat boots and riding boots remained in style. You probably saw many trendy suede and leather flat boots in nude and neutral colors, which easily matched all outfits. Many of these suede and leather flat boots had tassels or harness details, which I think, added an interesting touch.

In addition to these boots, cowboy boots also appeared this past fall season. The famous Frye cowboy boots were seen on many celebrity feet in magazines and television. Cowboy and flat riding boots, in general, are trendy to wear with jeans or leggings tucked into them, as well as with dresses and opaque or patterned tights. Ugg boots were not as trendy this year as they were in the past several years. Other than boots, ballet flats were also a popular trend this fall. Ballet flats were commonly worn with skinny jeans, leggings and tights.

In the winter, many women were worried about wearing their trendy shoes as they fear it will get ruined by snow and rain. However, a true fashionista learns how to manage and wears their trendy shoes in the winter. Actually, being caught in ugly shoes is much greater than their fear of ruining their trendy shoes. A ruined trendy shoe can always be replaced, but the ruined reputation of a fashionista is incurable. This is based from a general observation that I had.

This winter, suede heels were very popular. However, the biggest shoe trend this past winter was colorful pumps. You could find high-heeled pumps in every color imaginable this past winter. The pop of color was a great way to spruce up drab winter outfits in gray and black. High-heeled, knee-length leather boots with tabs to pull them up were also very popular. These could be seen worn with skinny jeans tucked into them or with tights and a cute dress.

Another boot trend this past winter was ankle boots. Both flat and wedge heel ankle boots enjoyed popularity this past winter. You also probably witnessed many heels adorned with metal spikes, which gave the classic heel a sexy dominatrix vibe. Additionally, shoes with fur in cheetah and leopard prints were very popular this winter. If you bought a cheetah or leopard printed fur shoe, you may want to hang on to them for next year because they are projected to remain popular next fall and winter.

Spring is one of the hottest seasons for trendy shoes. Last spring, one of the most popular trends was nude shoes. Shoes in every shade of beige could be spotted on the shelves of high end designer boutiques and on low end retailers. These nude shoes made fashionistas so happy because they literally matched everything without even trying.

Peep toed pumps were also popular again this year. Peep toed pumps could be found in a cheerful array of colors and prints last spring. Ballet flats were also popular for the spring, but that was no surprise as ballet flats have been trendy for several years now. I have seen a lot of shoes with perforations this past spring, which I had not seen in quite some time. Casual sneakers with rubber toes (think reminiscent of the classic “Chuck” style Converse sneaker) were also popular this spring. Another popular sneaker trend was a cross between a sneaker and a boating shoe, which was popularly seen in shades of navy, red and white.

Summer is the time for open toed sandals to show off those pedicures. One of the biggest summer trends this year has been the “caged” high-heeled shoes, which feature a crisscross style of leather across the foot and ankle, resulting to a foot looking like it is trapped in a cage. These sexy little caged shoes have been seen on the feet of many celebrities; they were all over magazines. Fortunately, they are relatively easy to walk in because the strap around the ankle helps fashionistas keep their balance. Falling in heels is never sexy, no matter how trendy the heels are.

Another popular trend last summer was colorful sandals. However, colorful sandals are usually trendy in the summer, so there is really no surprise there. Braided flat leather sandals in nude colors have been very trendy this summer, as well. Additionally, wedges and espadrilles have been very popular for the summer. Wedges and espadrilles are fabulous because they are easy to walk in and you never have to worry about getting a heel stuck in the grass at an outdoor party. As such, most fashionistas fully embrace this trend. Cork heels and cork wedges have also been very popular this summer.

One trendy shoe that has been popular for all seasons is the rubber rain boot. I am not talking about your father’s old rain boots here. It’s about the bright colored rain boots with cute prints all over them. This trend likely caught on because of functionality, rather than cuteness, but it’s probably still safe to call them cute. Especially in the cities, you could spot fashionistas strut their stuff in rain boots with dresses, jeans, leggings and even tights. The Hunter brand rain boots have been very popular. Unfortunately, the Hunter boots can run around $100 in price. The good thing though is it has been easy to find cheaper boots made by other brands that are just as cute.