Hi Guys!

I'm in my fourth year of university and we have a formal coming up. I bought this dress last year, and while I love it to death, I'm worried it'll be a bit cutesy for formal. I'm already really short (5 foot 1) so I don't want to look like a little kid. It's definitely my style...and I like that it'll stand out from the bagillions of tight black dresses, I just don't know how to accessorize it properly.

I'm thinking really high heels, but I don't know what colour to do...I have plain nude 5 inch heels that could work but I kind of want to buy a new pair. So if anyone has any interesting colour/embellishment ideas, send them my way! I want to try to find a way to funk this up a bit! Make it more different!

Also, hair up, down? Necklace, long earrings? I can't figure out what would look best? My hair is fairly long so could do any pretty much anything with it

Thanks a lot in advance!

here's the dress: s3.amazonaws.com . . .

Well obviously you might have a very different style to me, but I'll give it shot and you can take what you will from it

If it were me, I think I'd probably go with simple heeled pink pumps (for me, I think the exact height would depend slightly on the length of the dress, but it's hard to tell from the picture where it would come to), and I'd get them the same colour as the ribbon that's around the waist and a matching clutch, possibly with something white/silver and sparkly on it.

Personally, I would definitely wear my hair up with that dress for a formal, though I think it could still look good worn down if you styled it nicely.

I would wear a necklace, but nothing too fine, otherwise I think it might look a bit silly. I can see a necklet or similar looking good with it (and I think you could get away with a thick or thin chain on it if that's what you did wear), and I'd probably pick silver over gold. You could wear a bracelet, but that *might* be overdoing it, I'd have to actually see it to be sure though (and also you'd have to see if it looked funny with your bag!)

I think you could really get away with any sort of earrings (provided that they're not horrible in their own right and that they match any other jewellery that you decide to wear) but then I'm probably not the best person to ask about that one, as it's very rare that I actually wear earrings wear earrings myself.

Good luck, and hope that might have helped a little

That dress is NOT FORMAL. Not even close. It's not even semi-formal. It's a party dress - which is fine if that's what you're after, but it ain't formal. And I have to say, this thing is SKIMPY. Usually, you want to show EITHER your boobs OR your legs. This dress shows pretty much everything with a fair chance of also exposing your Britney if you're not careful. If you put 5" heels with this at a formal event, you'll look like a moderately priced hooker.

panic wrote:

That dress is NOT FORMAL. Not even close. It's not even semi-formal. It's a party dress - which is fine if that's what you're after, but it ain't formal. And I have to say, this thing is SKIMPY. Usually, you want to show EITHER your boobs OR your legs. This dress shows pretty much everything

I agree. It is a cute dress but deffinately not appropriate for a formal event.
If you were to wear it to a party I would reccommend the nude heels just NOT for the formal.

Rachel x

hey guys, thanks for all your help!

I'm really short so the dress actually comes to about my knees. The picture doesn't really do the dress justice. Though the event is labelled a "formal" it's not really too too formal since it's an unofficial university event and is closer to a bar night than anything else. I probably should have called it a semi formal. Lots of people in bar dresses, one or two in long dresses, and mostly people in varying styles of cocktail dresses. I was actually on the more formal end of things. Ended up wearing my hair up, with nude heels, and pearl drop earrings and a pearl bracelet. It was a great night!