There are desirable dresses across the Spring 23 collections, high end to high street.
There’s a profusion of pretty frocks in pastel hues and sweet prints, adorned with piecrust frills or shirring.

And as a counterpoint to “pretty”, there are pared-back, asymmetric and body-con cuts; punchy prints, graphic stripes, jolting colour, monochrome and details such as statement buttons or cut-outs.

If you saw headlines declaring the death of floral midi-dresses after John Lewis’s head of fashion said we should “move on”, you may be surprised to learn that floral-print midi-dresses are available across S/S23 collections.

MIDI CUT-OUT PRETTY-FRILLS La Ligne £645, printed, shirred silk charmeuse

Silk charmeuse midi with shirring, La Ligne, £645, Net-a-Porter

These range from overblown pink carnations at Dolce & Gabbana and exquisite massed blooms at Zimmermann, to florals of every kind at many brands — including John Lewis.
I suspect few women will “move on”.

Not only because we dislike being dictated to, but because we now inhabit a fashion universe where almost anything in almost any cut, hemline, colour or print is equally on-point.

MIDI MODEL SHOT Kaeli, cotton wrap dress, £275, The Reformation

Wrap midi dress, £275, The Reformation

This was aptly demonstrated at last month’s London Fashion Week, where the (female) fashion pack wore: maxi, mini and midi lengths; cargoes and cropped flares; trench coats, duster coats, blazers and Prada’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous lime leather coat (seen on the iconic fasnionista Anna Wintour).

Also, floral-print midi-dresses are a wardrobe staple for everything from the school run to the boardroom — and even for a simchah, if we swap our Veja Campos for vertiginous heels.

There are short hemlines in S/S23, too.

The label “mini” may indicate super-short or knee-length. Photos may mislead, too, so check measurements carefully.