The short answer on Garden Party Attire: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Lining is what stops a cheap fabric reading as cheap. Check where the waist seam sits on the model against your own proportions. A dress that fits the shoulders can be taken in anywhere else. One that does not, cannot. The groups below run from the decision that matters most to the ones you make afterwards.

What decides this is shoulder fit, length and how the fabric moves. Everything else is preference. Two from the first group show the range: 16Arlington's Nia Dress in Linen at $340, and Rebecca Vallance's Billy V Neck Maxi Dress at $441. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. Check where the waist seam sits on the model against your own proportions. A dress that fits the shoulders can be taken in anywhere else. One that does not, cannot. A higher price mostly buys materials and finishing, and occasionally it buys nothing at all.

A belt turns a shapeless dress into a deliberate one. Let the dress be the loudest thing you own that day. From the second group, veronicabeard.com's Aphrodite Mixed-Media Top ($228) is the one that earns its place, because it works in more than one context without being restyled. The third group is smaller and deliberately narrower, tops, for the decisions you make after the main one. None of this needs the whole group. One piece from each is usually enough.

There are 20 pieces here from 17 brands, $47.50 to $498, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. manymoons.com's Cropped Sweatshirt With Rainbow Drawstring - Yellow at $47.50 is the low-risk way in, and macduggal.com's Blue Sequin Long Sleeve Mini Dress at $498 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. Read as a set, they get you close to Garden Party Attire without any single purchase being compulsory. Nothing here is included because it is famous, and price is not used as a proxy for quality anywhere on this page. If you take one thing away: if you would not buy it at full price, you do not want it on sale.