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Now is as great a time as any to start shopping for a few staple pieces for your closet to get you through the next few seasons.
Below we are featuring a few of our favorite women’s chambray dresses. Always a classic, the chambray material is lightweight, airy and will keep you looking and feeling cool throughout the year, and can easily be layered for nights on the town.
Our choices include a few shirt dress-style silhouettes that will be a go-to for work and play and can be taken up a notch with a ton of glam accessories. There is also a strappy tank top dress with a cool curved hem and a flounce-sleeved dress taken up a notch with a flirty ruffled hem and eyelet trim.
Our Favorite Women's Chambray Dress of 2024
Allegra K Shift Dress — Best Overall
This chambray shift dress is one of the most versatile you can own in any wardrobe. Made from a comfortable and soft cotton/polyester blend, this dress is lightweight with a straight silhouette that is not too tight or loose and has a button-down front with belt. The below-the-knee length makes this dress easy to wear to work and when the day is over, can easily be accessorized with heels, tights, and jewelry for a night out on the town.
Pros
- The pan-style collar with lace detail gives the dress a unique look
- This dress can be machine washed
Cons
- Depending on your height, this dress may be longer or shorter than knee length
Joie Safia Dress — Best Details
If this dress does not scream Spring, then I am not sure what does. Another go-to option, this 100% cotton chambray dress has pull-on styling with a detachable waist-tie for a flattering line. This dress is also accented with one of Spring and Summer’s most popular fabric adornments– the embroidered eyelet trim on the sleeves and hem.
Pros
- This dress is fully lined
- It has adorable lace trim on the sleeves and bottom hem
Cons
- This dress may not work for all occasions
Kidsform Dress — Best Color Variety
While this simple button-down chambray dress is amazing on its own, it is how you accessorize that will show off your style. And this dress was made for accessorizing and styling – roll the sleeves up to show off all your cool bracelets and rings, add a cool blinged-out crossbody bag for color, and pair with your favorite pair of sneakers, sandals, heels, or flip flops depending on the occasion.
Pros
- This dress is lightweight, breathable, and smooth
- It comes in over 30 different colors
Cons
- It is suggested to size up if you prefer to wear this as a dress
RVCA Lexi Dress — Most Unique
This cool skater brand has come out with this even cooler chambray dress. Perfect for the upcoming warmer weather, this dress sports a strappy tank top with functional buttons up and down the front and a comfortable midi length. The soft material will make this dress a dream to wear when it heats up and can be easily layered for a night out.
Pros
- It has a loose fit that will flatter a wide variety of figures
- You can fasten or undo the top buttons according to your preference
Cons
- This dress is recommended dry-clean only
Calvin Klein Shirt Dress — Most Comfortable
Similar to the one above, this sleek shirt dress will keep you looking and feeling cool wherever you choose to wear it. Made from 100% cotton, this dress has a self-tie belt that can accentuate your silhouette and has a vertical pinstripe design for a flattering line. The best part is the short sleeves that come slightly above the elbow and have a ribbon-like accent for a final touch.
Pros
- This dress has a comfortable knee-to-midi length
- It has a unique, flattering vertical stripe pattern
Cons
- This dress is not lined
Buying Guide: Women's Chambray Dresses
Chambray is a simple, modest, yet durable fabric, and it’s used by professionals and for fashion all over the world. Learn to pick the top women’s chambray dresses in 2024 using our buying guide.
What Are Women's Chambray Dresses?
Chambray dresses are dresses made out of the fabric known as chambray. Chambray is a fabric derived out of yarn, and it was heavily manufactured for use in the twentieth century. In fact, many workers in the United States wore chambray shirts and denim pants, and this combination led to the term “blue-collar” as we know it today.
Chambray dresses are like chambray shirts, only instead of being worn as a top, they serve to cover the whole body instead. Chambray dresses are especially useful for casual to semi-casual occasions.
Why Do You Need a Women's Chambray Dress?
It’s light
One of the most common misconceptions concerning chambray as a material is that it’s the same as denim. In fact, many people see a chambray shirt or piece of cloth, and they immediately think of denim instead. While both denim and chambray are blue in color, the texture of both fabrics couldn’t be any more different. Denim is thick and rough, with little breathing room for your skin. It’ll last you a good while, sure, but it isn’t the most comfortable piece of clothing in the world.
And that’s where chambray comes in. Chambray is much softer and lighter than denim, and it’s still pretty durable despite this lightness. Some chambray shirts and dresses are even made slightly thicker to compensate for being not as durable as the likes of denim. The lightness and ease of wearing chambray quickly made the fabric an all-time favorite among workers, as they won’t feel sweaty and hot while they’re busy working.
It’s modest
If you’re the type of person who likes being a little more modest than the average person when it comes to wearing clothes, then chambray is a great option. It was popular during the twentieth century, during a time when modest attires were fairly common. And while society is generally more open to all sorts of attires these days, that doesn’t mean you should follow suit - if you like being modest in your fashion, there’s nothing wrong with that, and you can use chambray much to your advantage.
The nice thing about chambray is that it’s a very simple fabric, but not too simple. It’s similar to denim in the sense that even without prints, the texture of the fabric alone makes up for it, so you aren’t just wearing something bland. Of course, modesty often correlates to the length of clothing rather than the type, but as far as materials go, chambray is definitely one of the more “modest” ones, if that makes any sense to you.
Things to Consider When Buying a Women's Chambray Dress
Dress type
Chambray dresses are pretty varied, and if there’s a specific type of dress you’re looking to wear, there’s a good chance that there’s a chambray version of it. And while there aren’t dresses like full chambray gowns, you can still look for shorter dresses made out of chambray on the Internet or at your local mall.
When picking a dress type, consider the occasion and event that you intend on wearing the dress in. If it’s for something somewhat formal, then look for long dresses that cover up a bit more skin, and if you’re feeling confident and are looking to hang out with friends, shorter dresses are great options, too. For those of you who are looking for an everyday dress, consider getting a moderately long dress, one that can pass on many different occasions without looking too out of place. It’ll save you during emergencies more times than you think.
Tone/shade
Like denim, chambray doesn’t have a lot of color options that you can go for. That’s because the color of the fabric is the result of the materials used, and chambray is rarely dyed over. Most chambray dresses you’ll find at stores or online are those with some variation of blue, as that’s the standard color of chambray clothing.
Now, just because you’re limited to “blue” doesn’t mean you’re out of options. For example, if you’re looking to get more than one chambray dress, you can get one in a light blue and one with a darker blue tone. They’re still both blue, but at least there’s enough difference between them to make them easy to distinguish from one another. And at the very least, your friends won’t be thinking that you’re just reusing the same dress every day.
Size
As with any piece of clothing, you’ll want to consider the size before you buy. Too large of a dress and you’ll look like a toddler in a grown-up’s outfit, and too little, you won’t even be able to wear it at all. To make matters worse, not all chambray dressmakers use the same clothing size chart. You’ll need to either try the dress on yourself or rely on provided information from the manufacturer as well as the reviews on the store page.
