Everything worth knowing about Summer Date Night Outfit is below, starting with the part that changes what you buy. The pieces that work across two seasons are the mid-weights, which is where most wardrobes are thinnest. Colour dates a season faster than shape does. Lining is what stops a cheap fabric reading as cheap. 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: Tanya Taylor's Pippa Dress at $395, and Nana Jacqueline's Evelyn Velvet Dress (Black) (Final Sale) at $262. The first is the considered buy; the second is the one to start with. A dress that fits the shoulders can be taken in anywhere else. One that does not, cannot. Check where the waist seam sits on the model against your own proportions. 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, nanajacqueline.com's Bellina Bubble Hem White Top ($350) 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 pieces here from 15 brands, $117 to $940, all in stock when this was written. We would not buy all of them, and neither should you. duffieldlane.com's The Leona Dress in Watermelon at $117 is the low-risk way in, and 16arlington.co.uk's Michelle Top in Crepe at $940 only makes sense if this is a category you already use constantly. Read as a set, they get you close to Summer Date Night Outfit 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: pay for the thing that touches your body and economise on the thing that sits on top of it.