I have been wearing neutrals for ten years. Black, navy, grey, the occasional camel — a wardrobe that is coherent, versatile, and, if I am honest with myself, slightly safe. I had been telling myself this was a considered aesthetic choice. It was, at least partly, a habit I had never examined.
The Yumi Butter Yellow Floral Mirror Print Viscose Midi Dress is the dress that made me examine it. Here is the full account of how a butter yellow floral dress changed the way I think about getting dressed.
The Neutral Wardrobe Problem
A neutral wardrobe is easy. Everything goes with everything, getting dressed in the morning requires minimal thought, and the overall effect is polished in a way that colour can sometimes undermine if you get it wrong. I had been operating on this logic for a decade and had become so accustomed to it that I had stopped noticing the cost: a wardrobe that never surprised me, that never made me feel anything in particular when I put something on, that was functional without being joyful.
I had been looking at the Yumi range on ALTOE for a while — I had already bought the red kimono wrap dress and the black foil ruched dress, both of which had worked well. The butter yellow floral was the one I kept returning to and kept not buying, because butter yellow felt like a significant departure from everything else I owned.
I bought it for a garden party in June. It was the right decision.
Why This Dress
The butter yellow is the right version of yellow — warm and soft rather than sharp and acidic, the kind of yellow that works with a range of skin tones and reads as sunshine rather than caution tape. I had been avoiding yellow because I had been thinking of the wrong yellow. Butter yellow is different.
The rich floral print in purple, pink, green, and golden tones is what makes the dress work as a whole rather than just a colour. The print has depth and complexity — the mirror print creates a symmetry that gives it a considered, almost architectural quality. It is not a simple floral. It rewards looking at closely, which is the mark of a print that has been properly designed rather than applied.
The fitted ruched waist creates shape without restriction — the same combination I had valued in the other Yumi dresses. The softly flared midi skirt in lightweight viscose moves beautifully and provides the kind of graceful movement that makes a dress feel like a choice rather than a garment. At 125cm it is the right length for summer occasions — long enough to feel elegant, short enough to be practical.
The 83% viscose, 17% polyamide composition is breathable and drapey in a way that synthetic fabrics are not — it moves with the body rather than against it, and it stays comfortable in warm weather rather than trapping heat. Machine washable, which for a summer dress worn to outdoor occasions is not a small consideration.
The Garden Party
I wore it for the first time to a friend's garden party on a warm Saturday in June. I put it on and stood in front of the mirror for longer than usual — not because I was uncertain, but because I was surprised. I looked like myself, but a version of myself that had been turned up slightly. The colour did something to my face that the neutrals had never done. I looked, for want of a better word, alive.
I arrived at the party and within ten minutes had received three compliments. Not the polite "you look nice" that circulates at social occasions, but specific, genuine comments about the dress — the colour, the print, the way it moved. My friend's mother, who has been dressing beautifully for sixty years and whose opinion I value above most, held my arm and said: "That is a wonderful dress." I have been thinking about that sentence ever since.
Three Occasions Since
I have worn it to a birthday lunch, a summer work event, and a Sunday afternoon that required nothing in particular but where I wanted to feel good. Every time it has produced the same effect: I feel more present, more engaged, more like I made a choice rather than defaulted to one. That is what colour does when you have been avoiding it — it wakes something up.
The dress has been through the wash twice. The print is unchanged — the butter yellow is as vivid as it was on the first wearing, the floral colours as rich. The viscose has not lost its drape or its softness. It looks exactly as it did when it arrived.
What It Changed
My wardrobe is changing. Not dramatically — I have not abandoned the neutrals entirely, and I do not intend to. But I have bought two more coloured pieces since the butter yellow dress, and I am looking at my wardrobe differently. The question I now ask when I am getting dressed is not "does this work?" but "does this make me feel something?" Those are different questions, and the butter yellow dress is the reason I started asking the second one.
Ten years of neutrals. One butter yellow dress. I am not going back to asking only the first question.
Get Yours
👉 Shop the Yumi Butter Yellow Floral Mirror Print Viscose Midi Dress on ALTOE
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Written by Simone Adeyemi. All opinions are her own.
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