Free People "Turning Up The Temperature" Maxi Dress — Ivory, Size L, New With Tags
Brand new and unworn, with the original Free People swing tag still attached. The £98.00 UK shop price is printed on the tag and I have photographed it.
Free People's own name for this is the Turning Up The Temperature Maxi Dress, from their free-est collection. Their description: a breezy, effortless maxi with a bandeau-style neckline, lace-up detailing at the sides and a billowy skirt, for a classic beachy look.
(You will see some sellers list this as "Endless Summer". That is a different Free People sub-label — this one is free-est, and I would rather be accurate about it.)
The bodice is a deep smocked bandeau — a dense honeycombed panel of shirred ivory viscose that holds its shape and does all the work of keeping the dress up. At each side there is a lace-up tie, with the cord ends finished in fine metal-wrapped coils and small beads, so you can draw the bodice in or let it out.
From the base of the smocking the skirt falls away in an enormous sweep of fine crinkle viscose gauze — light, floating, and long, with an uneven handkerchief fall to the hem.
Colour is Ivory — Free People's own name for the shade, printed on the tag as ivry/ivoir.
Labelled L.
The smocked bodice is the only fitting point on this dress. There are no straps and no other fastening, so the smocking has to grip in order to stay up, and the side lacing lets you tune it.
Measured flat and relaxed, the bodice is 72 cm around. Smocking stretches a long way — a shirred panel like this opens to considerably more — so I have given a gently-stretched figure below as well. Please use the stretched figure to judge whether it fits, and the relaxed figure to judge how it will sit.
One honest warning about strapless dresses of this kind: if you are right at the very top of the stretch range, the smocking will have nothing left to grip with and it will slide down. Leave yourself some room.
Taken flat, garment lying on a table.
For reference, Free People publish the length of this style as 125 cm. Mine measures 120 cm, which I believe is a difference in where the tape starts rather than in the garment — I have measured from below the top ruffle of the smocking.
100% viscose. Made in India. Free People style number OB1505588.
New with tags. Never worn, never altered. The swing tag is still attached through the smocking on its original plastic fastening, and the small copper Free People tab is in place.
One thing to point out, so it is not a surprise. There is a diagonal pen line drawn across the price sticker on the swing tag. That is a retailer's mark, used to show an item cannot be returned to store. It has nothing to do with the garment, which is untouched — but it is visible in my photograph of the tag and I would rather explain it than have you wonder.
The ivory is clean and even throughout — I checked it in daylight against a sheet of white paper rather than trusting the camera, as pale fabric photographs differently under every light. No marks at the hem, the bodice or anywhere else.
The smocking is springy along its full run with no slack patches and no broken elastic. All four cord ends have their metal wrapping intact. The gauze is free of snags and the hem is clean all the way round.
Sold as seen — please study all photographs, which form part of the description.
Hand wash cold and separately, as the label says. Ivory viscose picks up colour from anything else in the water, and there is a great deal of fabric here.
The instruction that really matters is "do not wring or twist". Viscose loses most of its strength when wet, and this is a very large volume of fine gauze. Wringing it will pull the skirt permanently out of shape, and on a garment cut this full that shows immediately. Lift it out supporting the whole weight, press the water out between towels, and let it drip.
Line dry, out of direct sunlight — strong sun yellows ivory viscose.
Low iron only if needed, and on the reverse. Do not iron the smocking at all: heat kills the elastic threads inside it, and the smocking is what holds the dress up. If it needs freshening, hang it in a steamy bathroom and let the crinkle relax on its own.
It may also be dry cleaned, which is the safe route if you would rather not hand wash something this size.