Hi guys and like I promised, back to a review today! Well when I got Everlane's cotton collarless belted shirt dress (review here) I thought I was done buying Everlane dresses because I had found The One (Dress). But when their Clean Cotton line of dresses came out, I couldn't resist not trying them out. I was initially drawn to their Clean Cotton Crop Tank and Clean Cotton Pull-On Skirt combo (which will be reviewed next), but decided to try out this Clean Cotton Cross Back Dress as well.
First a note on sizing: I ordered this in my regular Everlane size of 4 and I found that it ran true to size. It was a bit snug in the waist though so if you're in between sizes, I recommend sizing up. The size 4 fit perfectly but I struggled to get the zipper all the way up by myself. I'm not sure if it's because I'm on the chubby side of size 4 or because the zipper is placed in an awkward location between the elastic waist band and ending just below the arm pit (but not all the way up to the arm pit area, which I think would have made getting into and out of this dress a tad easier).
Anyway what do you think?
I don't think it looked that bad, but in the end I returned this dress because of two reasons. One: the pleats under the waistband caused the dress to poof out in the front, and for me personally I dislike that (that's also why you see me holding down the front of the dress in the second picture). I have a hard enough time trying to keep my figure slim, so I'm not really a fan of clothing that gives me extra volume in the midsection. And two: the awkward zipper placement and the cross back means having to get in and out of this dress by pulling it over your head and it was really difficult for me (I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong but yeah I was struggling).
Also, I'm not a huge fan of this cotton/elastane material. It's a lot like their cotton poplin and wrinkles tremendously. The pictures above were after I "ironed" it with my favorite travel steamer. And even with the steaming, the dress looks a bit wrinkled to me. This is a high-maintenance material.
If you'd like an excellent second opinion about this dress, Grechen got the same one and you can read her review about it here. Anyway my favorite Everlane dress of all time is still their cotton collarless shirt dress, but I did end up keeping the Clean Cotton Crop Tank and Pull-up Skirt, so a review of that soon. And you can read all my other unsponsored Everlane reviews, like this one, here.