Real stories · One dress for every smart invitation

The Dress That Answers Every Smart Invitation

Whatever the invitation says — dinner, carol concert, 'smart please' — there's now one dress in my wardrobe that is always the answer. It's the Averina, and it has ended a very specific kind of panic.

You'll know the panic I mean. The card on the mantelpiece says seven o'clock, smart, and you're standing at the wardrobe at five realising that everything you own is either too everyday or trying too hard. I've bought 'occasion' dresses before that managed one occasion and then sulked in the wardrobe for a year.

The Averina, from York Boutique — a British label I order from often — is different because it's cut like something from the fifties: a neat lapel collar, a wrapped V at the front, a waist where your waist is, and a midi skirt that moves. It isn't a trend. It's a shape, and the shape does all the work.

It wears beautifully. The fabric is soft and smooth with a gentle sheen, and the tailored top half holds you rather than clings, which is why you look composed at eight o'clock and still composed at eleven. The wrapped V and the little lapels frame your face the way a necklace is supposed to — I wore it bare-necked to dinner and didn't miss a thing. And it has pockets. A smart dress with somewhere to put your hands: whoever decided that deserves a medal.

Seven o'clock, 'smart please' — and for once I was reading the card calmly with a cup of tea.

I'll be honest: I paused at the price. Then I counted what's already in the diary before January — two dinners, a concert, a retirement do — and realised one dress that answers all four is cheaper than one panic-buy that answers none. I did check before ordering that I could send it back if it didn't suit — you can, within a fortnight, and the delivery's free — which settled the last of my doubts.

At Pauline's birthday dinner it collected two compliments before the main course, one of them from a woman I've never once seen compliment anything. It comes in five colours in sizes UK 8/10 to 18. Mine is the black, which I suspect is the one you'll live in.