Rat & Boa makes essentially two kinds of dress and confusing them is how people end up disappointed. The first is the long, fluid, print heavy dress built for heat and holiday, cut on the bias or gathered at the shoulder, designed to move and photograph well in daylight. The second is the shorter, sharper, mostly black evening dress with structure through the bodice, which reads as a going out dress and nothing else. Both are good. They are not interchangeable, and the fabrics tell you which is which before the styling does. Anything in a light viscose or a printed satin belongs to the first group. Anything with boning, a corset seam or a heavy lining belongs to the second and will be far too much for a lunch.

Two things trip people up. The prints are placed rather than repeated, so the same dress in two sizes does not look identical, and it is worth looking at the size you intend to buy rather than the sample image. The linings are minimal by design across most of the range, which is part of why the drape is so good and also why several of the lighter dresses want something underneath in strong light. A slip in a matching tone solves it without changing the line. On fit, the bias cuts run long and skim the hip closely, while the gathered and tiered shapes are far more forgiving through the middle. Hems are cut for heels on the long dresses, so factor in the shoe before deciding a length is wrong.

We rate this brand highest on the long printed dresses and rather lower on the very structured evening pieces, which compete with a lot of cheaper options doing the same thing. The prints are the reason to shop here and they sell out by size rather than by style, so the useful move is to decide on a print you like and check it early in a season rather than waiting for a markdown that tends not to come on the good ones. If you take one thing away, treat the long printed dresses as the collection and everything else as an extra, because those are the pieces you will still be reaching for in three summers.