Straight cut, no waist seam — the print does the work.

A straight shift is one of the few shapes with nothing to sit in the wrong place, which is exactly why the details it does have matter so much. The first is the print. Large placement prints are almost always drawn on a sample size and then stretched to fit the rest of the range, so the focal swirl that sat on the chest at a size M ends up sitting on the hip six sizes later, or runs off the side seam and simply stops. The second is the sleeve. Short set-in sleeves are routinely cut with a narrow sleeve head and then tapered towards the opening, so the seam sits inside the shoulder and the hem of the sleeve closes around the widest part of the upper arm. You feel it every time you raise your arm and you can see the line it leaves. The third is width at the hem. A knee-length straight skirt that is cut narrower at the hem than at the hip has to ride up when you sit down, because there is nowhere else for the fabric to go.

The Viviana Printed Relaxed Dress is built to sidestep all three. It carries its full width from shoulder to hem in one line — no nipping in and back out — so the body of the dress skims past the waist and hip without being asked to fit either. Its print is laid on the diagonal, running from the right shoulder down to the opposite hem, which is the one direction that stays continuous across a wider body instead of being cut in half at a side seam. And the solid black panel across the right shoulder and sleeve gives that busy artwork a hard boundary at the shoulder, so the detail lands on the chest and the arm stays plain.

Why it works

• No waist seam anywhere: the dress hangs from the shoulder, so there is no horizontal seam that has to find the right place on your body.
• Full width carried down to the hem: the skirt is as wide at the bottom as at the hip, so it does not have to ride up when you sit.
• Short sleeves cut straight rather than tapered: the sleeve opening is as wide as the sleeve head, so it rests on the arm instead of closing around it.
• Diagonal placement print: runs shoulder to opposite hem, the one direction that stays whole across the width rather than disappearing into a seam.
• Solid black right shoulder and sleeve: gives the print a clean edge at the shoulder and leaves the upper arm plain.
• Plain round scoop neckline: a closed curve with no opening, so there is nothing to fall forward when you lean.

Fit note

Cut loose and straight, and it runs generous through the body. Take your usual size if you want it to skim; go up one if you want real air around the hip. It is a woven cloth with no stretch, so the width has to come from the size rather than from give — which is why the hem width matters more here than it would in a stretch fabric. Because the artwork is a single placement design rather than a repeat, the exact position of the swirl shifts a little from one size to the next. Knee length on average height. Two colourways, Navy and Pink, printed from the same artwork in different colours. Sizes M to 4XL.