My first dress from April Meets October, this small BIPOC female-owned La-made brand, was the Ogden dress. Since then I had seen the May dress everywhere and wanted to try it out. I was a bit hesitant at first since the long length and long bodice of the dress doesn’t usually favor my petite height and long torso. But when I found it on eBay for a bit less than retail, I decided to give it a try. And overall, I’m quite happy with my new-to-me summer dress!

I love the drop shoulder and slightly puffy sleeve of this dress, and it’s what first attracted me to it. And yet even with the puff sleeve I can fit the dress under a loose sweater like I did above (and I might like this layered look even more than the dress by itself). Also I’ve been craving a good blue gingham dress since last summer and this one fit the bill. The fabric, which they describe as cotton linen, is quite thick and substantial without being rough. It feels like a mid-to-heavy-weight cotton. One thing I didn’t know about and wasn’t a huge fan of is the raw hem at the bottom. It’s sewn so that it can’t completely unravel, but I’m not a fan of the loose threads look.

One downside with April Meets October is their one size fits all model. I get it that it’s hard for a small brand to make various sizes, but it’s too bad that there’s no size-inclusivity here. I’m a size 6 in dresses and I feel like it’s a perfect fit. To me the most size limiting aspect of this dress is probably the cuff of the sleeves since there’s no stretch there (it’s 6in across and so if you have a large forearm, I could see it getting stuck on the arm). Also the dress is quite long on my 5’4” frame. Also since they don’t have these measurements on their website, PTP measures 24” across and the dropped waist measures 21” across when the dress is laid flat.

The dress is easy to wash (I just machine wash it with all my regular clothes) and then hang dry. It dries relatively quick and with minimal wrinkling (unlike 100% linen) so I don’t need to steam out any wrinkles after cleaning.

Overall I’m happy with this dress (but I’m happy I bought it used) and look forward to wearing it a lot the rest of the season!