This week, I’m reviewing another summery dress. This is the “Ingenue” dress from Vixen by Micheline Pitt, which comes in a variety of colors and prints. It’s similar to the Vacation dress that I previously reviewed, only with straps instead of sleeves.

I loved the Vacation dress so much that I ended up buying it in a second color (cornflower blue)—and I would probably get a third (or fourth) if it comes out in another color or print that I adore. So naturally I had to try the Ingenue dress too!

I’m a sucker for mustard. It’s one of my favorite shades to wear and I feel like it coordinates with so many other colors too. The Vixen version is a little more brown than I’m used to—more Grey Poupon than French’s—but I’m sill a fan. It matches beautifully with a dark brick-red leather moto jacket that I own. It goes well with other fall colors too, making it a great transition piece rather than being strictly for summer.

I ordered my usual medium with current measurements 38”-29.5”-42”, height 5’6”, and bra size 30G (UK). In these photos, I’m wearing an Ewa Michalak PL bra in 30GG. Normally, I wear this dress with a strapless bra, but I opted for straps in these photos so you can see how the bra lines up with the dress.

The Ingenue features a back zipper, fully adjustable straps, huge pockets, fully lined bodice, lightly gathered skirt, and a matching belt. The fabric is not the same as the Vacation, which I’m a little sad about. It’s 96% polyester and 4% spandex with a decent amount of stretch (like the Vacation), but the texture is different. It’s not as smooth and cool-to-the-touch, with a crepe-like exterior texture and a sticky satin-ish interior texture that doesn’t feel as nice against the skin.

That being said, the fabric is still lightweight and swishy, as you can see in these “action” shots where I’m swaying the skirt back and forth:

Another crucial difference between the two dresses is that while the Vacation dress has elastic along the top of the gathered bust (allowing it to fit a wide range of sizes), the Ingenue bust is gathered on the exterior, but lined with a flat panel of fabric on the interior. This is a real shame, because it totally limits the boob size that the dress can accommodate. It fits my chest pretty well, but someone with a more than 10” difference from waist to bust may need to size up, or skip this dress entirely.

As well, I think the height from underbust seam to neckline edge is a bit short. When I set the straps to ensure the underarms completely cover my bra (and avoid side-boob), the underbust seam gets pulled up slightly onto breast tissue, yet the neckline is still considerably low. I would not really consider this a “work-friendly” dress for busty gals.

Overall, I’d probably give this dress a B for boob-fit score (which I generally think of as “Better fit than average, but maybe not great above G cups”).

Lastly, let’s take a look at those visible bra straps. As you can see in the above photos, it’s actually not bad! It lines up almost perfectly in the front, and isn’t too far off in back. I’ll still reach for a strapless 9 times out of 10, but with the right shade of nude, I think you can get away with wearing a normal bra.