Boden Sassy Silk Dress!

I promised you all a review of at least one Boden spring item before the night was through, and I have managed to live up to my promise (woohoo!). :)

Untitled by dinagideon featuring silk dresses

I have a total of four items left to review for you, the sassy silk dress (today--also in polyvore above), the Terazzo Tunic, the Pool Party Tunic, and the Gypsy Top (all of which will be in the next few days). I have already done a review of the stitched hem mini, which you can find at this post.

Sassy Silk Dress

This beautiful, all silk dress (with a poly lining) retails for $148.  This price isn't the most insane I have ever seen (cough, cough, J. Crew, chortle, chortle, Anthropologie), but it is still quite a few bucks to throw around.  So is this dress worth the price (even with the extra 15% off it still is $125.80)?

Here are my thoughts.  I love the fabric, and I *know* the fabric is expensive.  Almost all of the silk I items I have ever bought from Boden are thick, luxurious, and the colors are saturated and sublime.  The workmanship that went into this dress is high, as I have some experience having made my own dress.  The seams are perfect, the lining is stitched to the outer layer perfectly, and there are no fraying threads or loose bits anywhere.  The zipper does not stick, which can be a problem in side-zip items.

So those are the positives.  Here are the negatives (only a few): the sheath shape means that if you have hips, you will have to order the bigger of your two dress sizes to ensure you can wear this item, which means the bodice will be a bit loose; the poly lining, while soft, is the kind that static LOVES, so I kept having to fuss to keep the lining down (it wanted to ride up with each leg movement-lol); and there is the issue of the pleating at the waist, which draws attention to your belly area, so if this is a problem area for you, you may want to either wear spanx or just look for other dress options (including the Relaxed Silk Dress, which the lovely shopwithm reviewed recently).

I ordered a size US 8 Regular, or UK 12 Regular.  I oscillate between their size 6 and 8 dresses, but based on the measurements, I knew my hips would need the size 8.  I was right.  ;)

From the side you can see the pleating at the waistband.  It doesn't bother me, but I can see where that would bug some...

From the back.

I added this belt from Anthropologie to see how a belt would look.  I actually quite like the belt with the dress, but if I were to wear this for real, I would add a cute pair of nude heels instead of grey flats (although I liked the grey flats with the dress by itself).

I hope this review helped some of you!

P.S.  Boden has NO retail shops in the US, which is why reviews like the ones the *very few* of us "Boden Bloggers" do are so important.  We do get free shipping and returns, which is fab, but it can be an INCREDIBLE bummer to receive a top, dress, skirt, or tunic from our dear friend Johnnie only to realize it doesn't fit, etc.  I want to stop this for you all as much as possible.  We have NO way of doing "fitting room" reviews, and since I don't have endless cash (one can dream--lol), I have decided to start publishing posts with "Boden Guest Reviews."  I know many of the other blogs out there do this for other retailers, and I definitely can see where this would be a HUGE benefit to us Boden Aficionadas.  If you would like to do this, please send photos, info, and your guest reviews to me at dinagideon@aim.com with the subject as "Boden Guest Review--Name of Item."  Sound like a plan??? ;)  Thank you in advance!