Banana Republic Trench Dress

Last week I went to Banana Republic to look around while waiting for my car windows tint job to get done.  I found the cutest dress!  It is the Trench Dress.  I've always been a fan of military inspired styles, so this dress just caught my eye immediately.  In addition, they were having 40% off of dresses, so it was discounted to $78 from $130.  Not bad at all!

Frankly I'm pretty surprised at such low ratings it has on the Banana Republic website.  But there are only 8 reviews so far, and this dress seems to be selling out super fast so I'm guessing most people who have bought it are happy with it.

At the store, they only had size 4 or above left when I was there.  I usually wear size 2 or 0 at Banana, so at first I was bummed.  But then I realize the size 4 was a petite size, which is really equivalent to a shorter size 2 regular.  So I tried it on, and I immediately knew I had to buy it!  Many of the online reviews complained of this dress running too big.  Maybe getting it in petite is the way to go and I got lucky accidentally.  But I can't confirm this theory since I wasn't able to try on the regular size.

Whatev, I'm pretty happy with the petite fit!  Here it is on me.  As you can see, it is quite short in petite lol.  

Here are some close up shots - love that it has pockets!

So this dress actually has a double breasted closure.  That makes it more like a trench jacket I guess!  A lot of buttons on 2 rows:

As you can also see here, without the waist tie, it fits pretty loosely on the side:

There's a button that holds up the sleeve, I love this feature although I wish the stripe was longer:

I think the dress looks a lot better with sleeves rolled up:

You can also wear this dress as a jacket over other things:

You can wear it open too, but it reminds me too much of a lab coat this way:

I even tied it in the back to make the waist cinch in more, but it still looks pretty loose.  I probably won't wear it this way.  But it's good to have the option.

I did wear this dress out to dinner on Saturday night already!  Instead of the waist tie it came with, I used my new Burberry belt instead.  Also paired it with the Mansur Gavriel Bucket Bag.  I think the bag style and color go very well with the dress.

I think I like this dress better with the Burberry belt.  It makes it look sleeker, and I like the slight color contrast.  The size of the belt is perfect for the belt loops of the dress:

This dress does wrinkle though.  I steamed it before I wore it out.  But it got more wrinkles after wear.  In a way it's kind of ok since the style is pretty casual.  

In addition to the dress, I actually bought 2 more items from Banana Republic.  A blouse and a green leather skirt.  They were both on sale.  However, after going to the Vince Sample Sale and getting much better quality items for same-ish price, I'm not sure that I want to keep the Banana stuff anymore.  This is what they look like:

The shirt is quite long:

Close up:

So the shirt is not bad, but it is polyester and the fit is so not the same as Vince lol.  But it is cheap, only like $27.  I might still return it though.

The skirt is a nice color and it is genuine leather.  But I really dislike how the sides don't lie smooth against your hips.  There are all these lumps and bumps.  I think it's a sign that the item is just not made very well, like they couldn't even sew properly.  

This skirt is size 2, which fits well in the waist.  But it is a little loose in the hips, which is probably also contributing to the sides being lumpy.

When I bought it, I thought for a leather skirt, it is not a bad sales price.  It was $82 on sale.  But the day after, I got the Vince leather skirt for $110 and it is soooooo much better, both in fit and material.  So I now think $82 is way too much for this skirt lol.  I now have one genuine leather skirt and 3 faux leather skirts (here, here and here).  Probably don't need another leather skirt, so I'll most likely return this one as well.