![The 30 Best Fall Dresses to Wear All Season (1) The 30 Best Fall Dresses to Wear All Season (1)](https://i0.wp.com/hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/screenshot-2024-08-15-at-1-42-21-pm-66be3e14cc9df.png?crop=0.987xw:0.870xh;0.00641xw,0.102xh&resize=640:*)
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As a fashion editor, there’s nothing I love more about autumn than getting to wear my best fall dresses. The withholding nature of a draped cashmere maxi dress or a knife-pleated midi feels so refreshing after a summer full of botanical prints and SPF-required cutouts. The best fall dresses also embrace a dramatic palette—full of burgundy, deep navy, and forest green, along with staple neutrals—that speaks to my Scorpio heart. When it’s time to get dressed, all a dress needs to feel complete are a pair of my best leather boots and a piece of minimalist jewelry. (Of course, maximalists know they can easily pile on more.)
I started gathering 2023’s best fall dresses weeks before the leaves began to change. Really, this list began at Fashion Week in February, when designers shared their vision for the fall we’re experiencing now. I took mental pictures of Ulla Johnson’s orange crushed-velvet slipdress and Proenza Schouler’s lipstick-red strapless leather dress when they came down their respective runways—each one channels typical fall colors into exciting new textures, in the ultimate versions of a fall wedding guest dress. Inspired by the yearlong trend of elevated capsule dressing, I also kept track of neutral sweater dresses and twisted T-shirt dresses from labels from Altuzarra to the Garment: pieces that trade bright prints for rich textures and inventive draping evoking a cozy fall blanket.
Shop the Best Fall Dresses of 2023
There’s an undercurrent of practicality in these fall dresses and the others ahead. After all, they need to withstand dropping temperatures and layer neatly under an oversize coat. But dresses that transition from August to October can still have an element of whimsy and fun, as Jessie Loeffler Randall, creative director of Loeffler Randall, told me. She treats her plaid, puff-sleeve Gillian midi from her current collection as a transitional dress with a simple turtleneck underneath or heat tech longsleeve underneath. “This way I can extend the life of pieces and make them work all year round,” she explained.
Fall dresses are so much more than long sleeves and deep colors; to me, they’re an entire attitude. Ahead, shop the 30 best fall dresses I plan to wear all season. Each one was chosen based on expert recommendations, shopper reviews, runway reporting, and my own extensive testing.
As a semi-professional Hill House dress collector, I think this may be the label's best sweater dress to date. The sweeping scoop neckline and blouson sleeves are pretty and polished, while the wool blend fabrication guarantees and cozy and comfortable day wearing it. I'm envisioning myself wearing it with a long black hair ribbon and Miu Miu flats for a balletic moment, but the minimal design could go in all sorts of aesthetic directions.
Sizes: XXS–XXL
Colors: Gray, black
This Rixo dress is at the top of my personal wish list. I love how the designers inventively combined two quintessential fall prints—the basic black-white polka dot and an exaggerated leopard print—into a single dress with a layered effect.
What reviewers say: “Absolutely adore this dress and know I’m going to get so much wear out of it, a forever dress. I sized down - I’m a 12 but was a bit big so kept the size 10.”
Sizes: 2–22
Colors: Leopard/dot, startlet floral, poppy/leopard, and more
Sexy, streamlined, and so classic: This modal maxi dress is the sort that you never stop wearing once it arrives.
Sizes: 12–26
Colors: Black
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Halie LeSavage
Fashion Commerce Editor
Halie LeSavage is the fashion commerce editor at Harper's BAZAAR. Her style reporting covers everything from reviewing the best designer products to profiling emerging brands and designers. Previously, she was the founding retail writer at Morning Brew and a fashion associate at Glamour.