The use of lace on women’s dresses is usually limited to elegant wedding dresses or trashy undergarments but this season designers have branched out from these polar opposite to a middle and less extreme ground, making it a look for everyone. In the past, whilst very revealing lace dresses have looked impeccable on the catwalk, celebrities have been known to make fashion blunders by trying to imitate this look in everyday life, and revealed more than they bargained for! With this season’s trend of the more demure and less revealing lace dress, women can sport this fashion without fear of over-exposure, celebrity or not.

Lace on dresses comes in different forms this season, from simple sections covering the whole dress to subtle, detailed editions to the edges of sleeves or skirt. Lace in its simplest form is like very tight knit, thin netting, sheer in appearance when next to the skin. This is at the more revealing end of the spectrum, if worn without anything underneath, and more than likely comes in black. This type of lace, worked into a style over a slip, is an evening style. It can look almost gothic in black especially if it covers the length of the arms and rises up to the neck, where the dress is fastened.

White, or ivory, lace offers a safer, more innocent look but is still very attractive. A popular style this season is the lace sitting over a plain slip dress, cut in a shift shape. The shift is typically knee, or above knee, length, has a neckline cut straight across the collarbones and has sleeves down to the elbows. The lace is slightly longer than underneath strappy shift. This season’s most popular style of lace is floral – dense lace sections in flower shapes, joined by leaves, stems and thinner sections of lace – and can be found in many women’s clothes shops on the high street.