Silhouettes

Silhouette is the first thing to settle when you are looking for a formal dress, and usually the thing that decides whether a gown feels right on you before colour or fabric ever come into it. This is the whole Sherri Hill range grouped by shape.

Fitted

The most common cut in the range. A fitted gown follows the body through the waist and hip and releases at or below the knee, and it is the shape most often built on a corset bodice, with a slit through the skirt. It asks the most of accurate measurements and is the least forgiving to alter.

Ball gown and A-line

The two full-skirted shapes, and between them they account for as much of the range as the fitted styles do. A ball gown takes a defined waist into a full skirt; an A-line falls straighter from the waist without the same volume. Both are more forgiving through the hip, and both carry tulle and taffeta well.

Two-piece

A separate top and skirt, sometimes matched and sometimes deliberately not. It has been a substantial part of the range for years, and it is the easiest shape to fit when the top and bottom of you want different sizes.

Mermaid, column and cape

The mermaid holds close to the knee before it breaks into the skirt, the most dramatic of the fitted shapes. The column runs straight and narrow without the flare. Capes appear across seasons, usually over a fitted gown.

What runs across all of them

Strapless is the most common neckline by a distance, then V necks, halters, one-shoulder and sweetheart. Lace is the dominant fabric, well ahead of sequin, satin and tulle. Beadwork and the skirt slit are the two details that appear most often anywhere in the range. Black, red and ivory lead the colours, with light blue, navy, royal, emerald and blush behind them.