The short answer on Alo Dress: pick one anchor piece, keep the palette to two colours, and let the shoes decide how formal the whole thing reads. Proportion does more than colour: volume on top wants something narrow below, and the reverse. Repeat one element, a metal, a texture or a colour, and an outfit looks deliberate. Check where the waist seam sits on the model against your own proportions. 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: Cinq À Sept's Sophie Stripe Maggy Dress at $297, and Significant Other's Veronica Mini Dress at $350. The first is the easy entry point; the second is where the money goes. A dress that fits the shoulders can be taken in anywhere else. One that does not, cannot. Lining is what stops a cheap fabric reading as cheap. 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, Joseph's Vssad Viscose Tailoring Dress ($238) 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, dresses, 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 dresses here from 12 brands, $68 to $395, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. THATS SO FETCH's Zena Full Length Dress - Peach at $68 is the low-risk way in, and A.L.C.'s Jean Plaid Cotton Midi Skirt at $395 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. On alo dress specifically: the difference between the top and the bottom of this list is real but smaller than the price gap suggests. 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.