Blog

It’s been a very exiting few months with the GTT Team. Not only have we been prepping for Christmas and waiting hard on the new season of Selling Sunset, but our Ivy Lane design team have been designing and reviewing what may be our best drop yet (not to be biased, but I do love a good satin dress). And thank God for open plan offices because the rest of the GTT Team have been able to see all of this genius at work and voice our opinions (9/10 times our opinion was just different variants of “WOOOW” and “LOVE!” but I’m sure you get the picture) so I’m sure you can picture us with our little faces pressed up against the glass windows when we found out that the latest drop would be arriving with us earlier this week. After months of waiting, we just couldn’t wait any longer to show you all what we’ve been working so hard on. But believe me when I say that there’s so much thought and work that goes into this brand from our design team (I admit that I play very little part in all of this thought and work, all of the credit for this falls on our design team, but I do very loudly offer moral support from my desk across the office like the world’s worst hype woman). And one of the first things that is looked at when it comes to designing these looks just so happens to be the trends that we’re expecting that coming season.

Firstly, I’ve been playing a little game as I’ve been writing these blogs in the past few months and it’s called “Take a shot every time I mention square necklines” (the name is still a work in progress, let me know if you can come up with something catchier). This is because the majority of styles we’ve been seeing in the past few months sport this neckline, and we’re not complaining because we just so happen to love it! If you’ve been reading any of the previous blogs you’ll know just how flattering they are, but I’ll remind you just in case you’ve forgotten! This neckline is the perfect way to show off the collarbones while the length of it also elongates the body in a really slimming way. While the neckline of this dress isn’t quite as structured as a more traditional square neckline, the cowl style of this one still boasts all of the flattering traits of a square neckline, but the extra material also adds a more relaxed feel to your look, reminiscent of Y2K fashion.

Next up we have cutouts, which just so happens to be one of my favourite current trends, even if it’s just for the meaning behind it. After the lockdown last year it was pointed out just how much the pandemic had effected women compared to men, with 76% of healthcare and social-care workers, 86% of personal care workers in health services being women, according to the European Commission’s 2021 Report of Gender inequality in the EU, which is such an interesting and eye-opening read, if you would like to read it you can find it in the above link! Not only this, but a lot of women were also employed in some of the worst hit sectors when restrictions were first announced, such as retail or hospitality. Some of the more high end designers noticed this and used their designs during this time to celebrate femininity and female empowerment. 

Just one of the ways of doing this was to feature cut-out details in their designs. While in some cases this may include waist cutouts to define the shape or a classic cold shoulder, something as simple as a keyhole cutout like the design at the back of this midi dress is just as flattering and empowering, as well as being super appropriate. We love the simple design of this one and the use of more subtle details to enhance the design even further, from the back cut out, to the tie at the waist to add definition to the shape, to the slit at the leg to add movement to the dress and stop it from seeming as if the body is drowning in material.

Of course we couldn’t just focus on the bigger trends, and had to include a little something that we knew you love, enter the exaggerated sleeve of this floral midi dress!This is the perfect way to create volume on the top of the body, making it the ideal option for our pear shaped girls with more volume in the hips. It always has a supper flattering effect on the tops of the arms in particular and is the perfect choice if you’re a little bit uncomfortable showing your arms. The way that this sleeve tapers off to a more fitted style below the elbow also avoids extra volume caused by too much material, which can at times make the hips look bigger than they are. The slit in the legs and the deep v neck also visually elongate the body and break up the lines of the dress, to stop the dress from being too overpowering due to the dark colour, floral print, and statement sleeves.

Girls, shorter hemlines are making a comeback! In fact, I had to take a break from writing this in order to lead a conga line throughout the office after making this announcement. We all love a good mini dress and it seems that you do too! This again lends itself to the reasoning that after approximately 18 years in lockdown, people are ready to start enjoying fashion and taking risks again, and what’s the best way to do this? By playing with hemlines shorter than my attention span of course! This style is always super flattering and slimming on the legs, and these dresses are made even more flattering by the wrap style. The tie detail of this dress lifts the bust while putting an emphasis on the waist while the lightweight almost satin like material will skim over the hips and any lumps or bumps in a super natural way.

This isn’t the only way of playing with fashion and going out of your comfort zone! There has been so many names for this trend in the past few months, I’ve been referring to it as “dopamine dressing” but have recently been introduced to the term “chaos couture” which may be my new favourite thing. To put it simply, this has been the rise of people throwing caution to the wind when it comes to style, whether it’s been by sporting a skin baring hemline like we mentioned above, rocking up to the office wearing the dress that you wore to your friend’s wedding last year with a chunky knit jumper layered over the top, or by battling out the colder months in highlighter toned clothing. We’re starting to see so many people wearing brighter colours well into the winter, simply because they want to as it has been proven that wearing fun, bright clothing makes you feel better, and we can all do with a little bit more of this mindset, right? For this reason, when this top was presented to us by our design team for a classic “yay or nay”, the festive red colour was an easy decision and while we fell in love with the hot pink colour, we normally would have put this aside as a spring/summer colour. But this year we all agreed that this one was a definite “yay” for the simple fact that…

A: we L O V E it!

B:How nice is it to have fun bright colours invading our wardrobe next to our darker winter clothes?

C: This top was rated 10/10 in the category “possibility of turning heads” and really, what more to we need?

Aside from the fun colour, we also love the bag on-trend back cut out detailing of this one paired with the tie at the back which makes this top a statement piece of its own and would be the real talking piece of your outfit.

Speaking of turning heads, sheer clothing is another huge trend that we’ve been seeing this year that we’ve been absolutely loving! While some designer brands have taken this to be a completely sheer ‘fit, this isn’t often appropriate, GTT’s Tina worked her magic here by coming up with a design that’s appropriate and comfortable as well as being bang on trend with this mesh skater dress. Fun fact: this dress was on a mannequin in our office for approximately half a day before it had to be removed because we couldn’t stop touching it, talking about it, or simply just staring at it and it was starting to affect our productiveness. The mesh neckline and arms of this one still show off that little bit of skin while still offering maximum comfort and support. As well as this, the thick band at the waistline pulls the waist in at its narrowest point while the pleated skirt adds volume to the bottom of the body and make the waist and top of the body seem even smaller in comparison and still skis over the stomach and mid section in a subtle way.

Not to say that we saved the best for last, but lets be real that’s exactly what we did. We’ve been hearing a rumour in the past few months that sequins have been getting a massive revamp, and that as with many more aspects of fashion, less is no longer more as sequins have become brighter than ever and we were so excited to see what Tina did with this information. To say that we weren’t disappointed would be an understatement! Our inner magpies were awakened when we saw this stunning mini dress. While most sequin dresses in the past have been just that: a sequin dress, in a simple bodycon style, we couldn’t believe how flattering this one is with its more relaxed style, flattering tie waist, and those exaggerated sleeves that we love so much. And the best part is that this dress is free of the uncomfortable scratchy feel that most sequin dresses offer and instead is lined with velvet for maximum comfort. Gone are the days of waking up the morning after covered in scrapes!

None of these float your boat? This is just a small selection of what we have to offer in our latest drop! From even more satin midi dresses, to simple day dresses, to an abstract mini dress that has been confirmed to be a front runner for the coveted number one spot on the list of our favourite dresses this year! You can find them all here!