I Stopped Buying Long Dresses Up Here. Then I Found One That Actually Breathes.

A note from a reader about the long printed dress from a small Queensland boutique that got her through a February wedding, a market morning and a very long lunch without once wanting to go home and change.

I had more or less given up on long dresses, and I live somewhere they should be perfect.

That is the odd part. Up here in Queensland a long dress ought to be the obvious answer. Cover your shoulders, cover your legs, stay out of the sun, done. And every single one I bought turned out to be a mistake by about eleven in the morning. Too much fabric, no air through any of it, and the whole thing stuck to the backs of my legs on the walk from the car.

So I went back to the same two knee length dresses and wore them until they went soft at the seams.

Then a friend from my walking group mentioned a dress from a small boutique called Port Douglas Boutique. It is called the Rimmey. I have worn it more in six weeks than I wore either of those two in a year, and I want to tell you why, because if you live anywhere warm you have probably made the same mistake I did.

What it actually is

It is a long, flowing printed dress. It falls from the shoulder rather than sitting on it, stays easy through the body without adding width, and the fullness is all in the skirt where it belongs. There is no waistband. Nothing to undo after lunch, nothing pressing anywhere, and nothing to smooth down when you stand up from a low chair.

The thing I did not expect was the air.

Because the skirt is cut full and the fabric is light, it moves as you walk and the air moves underneath it. That is the entire difference between a long dress you wear once and one you keep reaching for. I have walked the markets at ten in the morning in it, in Far North heat, and not once peeled it away from myself.

On the wardrobe door this morning. It has not really been put away since it arrived.

It moves when I move, and the air moves with it. After twenty years of long dresses that did neither, that is the whole thing.

The wedding

The fourth time I wore it was my niece's wedding, on a February afternoon, outdoors, which anyone from Queensland will tell you is a decision.

My daughter Kate was up from Melbourne for it. She looked at me getting out of the car and said I looked like I had made an effort, which from Kate is a standing ovation. Two women asked about the dress before we had even sat down.

What I remember is not any of that, though. It is that I sat through a two hour lunch in full sun and did not spend any of it thinking about what I had on. I did not go and stand in the air conditioning. I did not change before the evening. My husband John got the photograph of me with my sister and I did not do my usual little sidestep out of the frame.

"You look like you made an effort," Kate said. I had got dressed in four minutes.

→ Read about the Rimmey

Three things I noticed

I wrote these down in the first fortnight because I knew I would want to remember them.

1. The shape does the work, not me. It falls from the shoulder and floats past the middle on its own. There is no holding anything in and no checking side on in the mirror. I stopped thinking about my stomach the first time I put it on.

2. It is long without being heavy. Light fabric and a full skirt mean it lifts and moves rather than dragging. I have worn it with flat sandals for the market and a low wedge for dinner, and the length carries both.

3. The print keeps the eye moving. It runs across the whole dress instead of settling anywhere in particular. I have learned, rather late, what a difference that makes.

It is also cut generously through the body and the hip right across the range, so it is the same dress at the larger sizes rather than a wider version of itself. That is rarer than it should be.

Now, about the price

The price was the thing that almost stopped me, and I want to be honest about that. I sat at the kitchen table and wrote down what I had paid, or seen, for a long printed dress in the last couple of years.

• Witchery maxi, $189
• Blue Illusion, $159
• Port Douglas Boutique Rimmey, $109.95

And underneath it, in slightly larger letters, the only thing I could think to write. …how??

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you were on my verandah with a cold drink and you asked me whether to order one, this is what I would say.

I would tell you that most long dresses are designed by people who have never had to walk to a car in Far North heat, and that is why you gave up on them too. The Rimmey is cut so the air gets underneath it, and everything else follows from that one decision.

I would tell you the white is the one I reach for most, the multi colour is the one Kate says suits me best, and the light blue is the one I wore to the wedding. I would tell you to take two, because the stack discount comes off at checkout and you will wear both.

And I would tell you that if you have been walking past the long dresses for years because the last three let you down in the heat, this is the one worth trying.

— Julie