Sweater dress. The mere mention of the word used to make me cringe. Sweater dresses meant either loose, frumpy fabric that hung from my body in odd angles, or it mean a dress hugging my belly and making me feel very insecure about myself.

I felt all these things about this one little item, and yet, I had only tried on one sweater dress in my entire life.

Last week I found myself perusing the racks at my local Macy’s, trying to feel better about my lack of social life and my lack of enthusiasm about school. (Not a good thing to do by the way. I’ll be starting a shopping ban soon!) I found a gray sweater dress and it seemed to instantly match my mood. I took it to the dressing room and was so surprised by how much I loved it. Ah, retail therapy, how you always soothe my worries. For me, Macy’s is always kind of crazy with their prices. A dress you will find in store may be $80, but online it’s $35. That’s what happened with this dress. I couldn’t justify an $80 sweater dress with the approaching spring season, so I went home and looked it up online. Lo and behold, the dress was selling for less than half of what the actual store had listed (it’s no longer on the website). I put that baby in my virtual cart, and was soon in sweater dress heaven.

The sleeves have a little puff at the top and are a bit long on me, but that’s because I have narrow shoulders and short arms, beyond that, the fit was amazing. I gave the dress more shape by adding in a belt I got from torrid.

This belt is very comfortable because the back is a stretchy material, and the woven part is only in the front. I was heading out quick to run errands, so I put on my trusty Merona suede wedge heels and my new Aldo Cyphert purse and was out the door. I absolutely LOVE Aldo’s purses, and would say that nearly 90% of my purses are from Aldo. I find that the quality is quite good and reasonably priced for a great product. I’ve kept all of my purses from there for years, and this one is the newest addition to my Aldo obsession.

Overall, I think this dress has cured me of my fear of sweater dresses, and I will definitely be checking more of them out during the next Fall/Winter season.

Outfit Details: All links will take you directly to the product.

Dress: Spense Woman at Macy’s (No longer on site)

Belt: Torrid

Purse: Aldo

Shoes: Target Merona