Silver Satin Dress: Editors' Picks

Silver satin is a hard color to fake. Thin satin goes grey and flat under light, and good satin looks almost wet, throwing the light back so the dress seems to move even when you are standing still. Every dress on this page is satin, and every one of them is silver, from a pale moonlit shade to something closer to chrome.

 

The first group is the shorter lengths. ALIGNE's Blaze satin mini and SAEMDI's crinkled tulip dress are the easiest to wear out, and the Standards & Practices cowl neck slip is the one I would dress down with a white tee underneath. Coast's structured satin midi has a 3D corsage, 1XBLUE's Cosmopolitan midi is the slinkiest, and Wiederhoeft's Julie, in cotton silk satin with a belt, is the most tailored. LESET's Barb midi and the 7 For All Mankind Petal mini round it out.

 

How I check a silver satin: look at it under a phone flashlight. A good one stays silver; a weak one goes beige or grey and shows every seam.

 

What I would skip: silver shoes with a silver dress. Go black, nude or clear, and let the satin be the only metal.

Toni Maticevski launched his label in Melbourne in 1999 and still drapes and samples his designs himself, which is why his Glow Up gown leads the long group. The satin twists across the body and pools at the hem, and it is the clearest example on the page of why silver works best in a long line.

 

Laura Taylor and Ryan Holliday-Stevens founded Solace London in 2013, and the Cece cape effect gown is the brand at its most dramatic. Entire Studios' off shoulder gown, Nookie's Penelope drape gown and Bec + Bridge's Juna maxi are softer and simpler, and the two La Femme gowns, the strapless pleated bodice gown and the corset mermaid, are the ones for black tie. Staud's Freda, in silk blend satin, is the one I would wear to a wedding in the afternoon.

 

A long silver satin dress needs one thing: a hem that clears the floor in your shoes. Satin marks easily, and a dragged hem is the first thing to go.

Sarah Staudinger was the fashion director at Reformation before she started Staud with George Augusto in Los Angeles in 2015, and her Freda maxi is a good reminder that silver satin does not have to be for night. With flat sandals and a denim jacket it works at lunch.

 

For evening, keep the jewelry small and silver or skip it entirely. The dress is already doing the work, and anything competing with that shine looks like too much. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Red Dress and Mini Dress Edit.