Aleta | Button Front Oversized Pocket Midi Dress

Buttons the whole way down, on a dress too wide for them to be holding anything shut.

Button gape is a tension problem, not a button problem. A placket pulls open when the garment underneath it is narrower than the body it's on — the buttons become the only thing taking the strain, so the gaps appear at the bust and the hip and no amount of doing them up tighter helps. Getting dressed is the second thing nobody accounts for. A dress with no opening has to go over your head, which means it has to clear your shoulders and your hair on the way past, and the neckline is exactly the piece that grades least as the sizes go up. Length is the third. Width gets added to every size, but length usually doesn't, so a dress drafted to reach the ankle on the model arrives at the calf on a taller or fuller frame and the whole proportion of it changes.

Aleta answers all three with the same front opening. The buttons run the full length of the dress, from the V down to the hem, on a body cut genuinely oversized — so the placket carries no strain at all and has nothing to gape against; it's a design line and a way in, not a fastening under load. Because it opens all the way, the dress goes on like a coat: nothing has to pass over your head. And it is cut long, brushing the floor at the deep points at the sides, so there is length to spare rather than length to lose. The lower buttons can be left undone for as much walking room as you want.

Why it works

• Full-length button placket on an oversized body: the buttons take no strain, so there is nothing pulling them open at the bust or hip.
• Opens completely: it goes on like a coat instead of over your head, past your shoulders and your hair.
• Lower buttons can be left undone: you set your own walking room rather than relying on a split someone else placed.
• Cut long with deep points at the sides: length to spare, so it stays the length it looks in the photos.
• Dropped shoulders and wide sleeves made to turn back: nothing lands on your shoulder point, and you decide where the cuff sits.
• Patchwork blocks of pattern, no single repeat: no motif that has to be positioned on the chest and no repeat that has to line up across a seam.

Fit note

The longest and widest cut in the collection — properly oversized, so your usual size gives the shape shown. The weave is light and lets some light through, most obviously across the skirt in direct sun. It is also a dress you can wear open: left unbuttoned over trousers it works as a long layer, which is what the finished contrast on the inside of the cuffs is there for. There are pockets at the hip. The side points hang well below the centre front, which is the cut and not a fault. Sizes M to 4XL.