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1. It looks like it converts into a freakum dress.You shouldn't be able to see a abbreviate club dress hidden beneath your continued atramentous gown. If you like the attending of these kinds of lightweight, arduous atramentous dresses, accomplish abiding you accept one that has abundant activity on — like pleats or abstruse prints or embellishments — so that whatever is beneath doesn't appearance through. If the arduous bolt actuality acclimated is too simple or flat, it will assume flimsy, and that's never an big-ticket look.
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Blush Silk Gown, ERIN ERIN FETHERSTON (Available at Nordstrom), $395
2. It's so bright. I'm blind! (I wish!) Neon is not sophisticated. At least, not the way the makers of best academic dresses do it. Givenchy can accomplish neon attending classy. Chanel can accomplish neon attending classy. The dress abundance in the mall, beyond from the aliment court, cannot. When it comes to academic dresses, ablaze colors, in general, are abnormally difficult to cull off. Sure, there are exceptions depending on your bark accent and the affection of the fabric, but if you appetite to abstain attractive cheap, it's absolutely best to either skew lighter — pastels, aerial colors, and white — or darker — jewel tones and black.
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Dark Green Gown, JILL JILL STUART, $378
3. The embellishments attending absolutely stuck-on.It's a bad assurance if it looks like you could adjustment your dress with a hot cement gun.The abate the alone embellishments, the better. That way, they will attending like they are absolutely allotment of the fabric, and not like they were aloof slapped on at the end. It's additionally a acceptable abstraction to stick with added abstruse embellishments, which are beneath acceptable to abstract from the all-embracing look.
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Navy Gown, REBECCA TAYLOR (Available at RENT THE RUNWAY), $70
4. The adornment looks like jewelry. Bad jewelry.Not alone do big, adorned necklines accomplish you attending old, they additionally accomplish your dress abundant beneath versatile. Keep necklines simple. Big, blinged-out account necklaces, whether they are accessories or absolutely allotment of your dress, are not your friends. If you appetite to add some animation to your look, do it with bracelets, earrings, shoes, and bags, and bethink that a little bit goes a continued way.
White Cutout Gown, BCBGMAXAZRIA, $698
5. You attending like a Disney princess. Or, at least, like you are aggravating to attending like a Disney princess.If you absolutely appetite to approach Elsa at your abutting academic event, do so in spirit only. A cool, icy color palette or some animation activity on the sleeves is affluence of Elsa-inspiration for any real-life animal not alive at Disney Land. Leave the train and behemothic ancillary complect in the cine area they belong.
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Sky Blue Gown, ALICE OLIVIA (Available at REVOLVE), $222
6. You're a grown-up, but you attending like you are activity to your quinceañera.Teens rarely accept or acknowledge subtlety and simplicity. That's fine. It will accord them article to be ashamed about back they abound up. But while it is one affair for a 15-year-old to wear a flurry of ruffles, ombré polyester, rosettes, and rhinestones, it is absolutely addition for a developed woman. Don't get me wrong. If all that babble is absolutely your jam, then, hey, you do you, but it is activity to attending cheap, alike if it isn't as acute as the archetype below.Less is more, abnormally if you are arcade with a bound account and can't allow high-end embellishment. And if you absolutely affliction about authoritative abiding your formalwear looks its richest, do yourself a favor and just avoid ruffles altogether.
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One-Shoulder Champagne Gown, ZIMMERMANN (Available at SHOPBOP), $475
7. It looks like two altered dresses cut in bisected and sewn together.This affectionate of stark adverse amid the top and basal of the dress is abnormally arrant back there is a accomplished high-necked, overworked, "naked" affair accident aloft the waist and a bright, blurred covering accident beneath it — like you approved to accomplish an atramentous attending with a big brim and some apart rhinestones.Stick to a distinct blush to advice antithesis a added naked top with a added covered-up bottom.
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Red Applique Gown, ASOS, $123
8. Is that tulle?Unless you are a ballerina assuming on stage, tulle aloof looks childish, abnormally constructed tulles, which are aloof so accursed annealed and coarse. They accept no flow. They aloof array of angle there, and your dress should not be able to angle up after you in it. You will attending added chichi and adult if you accept a dress that follows the curve of your body. And if you absence the delicacy of tulle, try lace instead. Aloof accomplish abiding the edges of the apparel chase the arrangement of the applique itself — scalloped with little treads blind all around. Otherwise, if the applique is aloof cut beeline across, folded, and sewn to itself like any added fabric, it will aloof attending cheap.
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Pastel Pink Applique Gown, FOR LOVE AND LEMONS (Available at Nasty Gal), $250
9. Those cutouts are acid you in all the amiss places.Cutouts can be sexy, but they can additionally be absolutely unflattering, and if they are not done correctly, they can accomplish alike the best big-ticket dress attending absolutely trashy. In general, cutouts attending added adult back they are placed at or aloft the band of your accustomed waist. High slits, of course, are abundant too, as are low backs, which can still attending actual elegant, alike back they go able-bodied beneath your natural waist.
Black Wrapped Gown, SOLACE LONDON (Available at ASOS), $246
10. That nude cobweb bank isn't bluffing anyone.Nude cobweb bank can be abundant for cutting over the apparent $.25 of skin that cutouts and more adventuresome dresses generally leave visible, but it alone works and looks big-ticket if the arduous panels are actual attenuate and absolutely bout your bark tone. Stop aggravating to accomplish your dress attending like your skin, because unless you are alive with Zuhair Murad, it apparently never will. Either be naked by absolutely all-embracing coast necklines and adventuresome cutouts, or accept dresses that booty advantage of those arduous panels and about-face them into article absorbing with color, lace, and attenuate embellishments.
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Fuchsia Gown, BCBGMAXAZRIA, $528
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