Gown

Gown is not one shape but a register: a floor-length dress in occasion fabric, built with internal structure and cut as any of the standard silhouettes. A column falls straight and an A-line gown flares gently. The mermaid grips to the knee then flares, and a ball gown mounts a full structured skirt on a fitted bodice.

Structure separates gowns from long dresses. Formal bodices carry boning, the flexible vertical stays sewn into seams that hold shape against gravity. They also carry linings and sometimes a built-in corselet, an inner bustier that takes the support job away from your bra. Skirts may hold layers of net or horsehair braid, a stiff band sewn into the hem that makes it stand. All that weight and engineering is why a gown fits differently from anything else you own.

Judge a gown on three motions, not one pose. Standing, the hem should clear the floor by about an inch in the shoes you will wear. Seated, the bodice must not buckle or dig, since dinners last hours. On stairs, you need a free hand's worth of skirt or a shape that clears your feet. Single-purpose ownership is the trade-off. A gown does one kind of night perfectly and nothing else, and alteration is close to mandatory, so budget for the hem.