Wearing a dress with long sleeves this season may seem unwise for both the temperature and the frump factor, but celebrities have a trend up their sleeves—and it’s sheer genius. Diaphanous sleeves in mesh and lace have been spotted on the red carpet in patterns from polka dots to florals. Ranging from demure lace overlays to bra-baringly transparent tops, celebs are making it clear that wearing a dress with sheer long sleeves is a sexy and breezy way to show off your arms this season.
Liv Tyler looked pretty in polka dots at the Stella McCartney boutique opening, wearing an 80s-inspired top with a sweetheart neckline and sheer dotted long sleeves from the designer’s Fall 2011 collection that flared over a black pencil skirt. At the Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party, Twilight actress Anna Kendrick wore an eye-catching dress with sheer long sleeves in a leopard print by Zuhair Murad. Why stop at the sleeves? At the La Mer and Oceana World Oceans Day event, Kerry Washington’s whole black Valentino dress was sheer with a nude underlay that created an illusion of transparency from the long mesh sleeves to the lacy bodice and skirt with floral appliques.
Who wore the sheer trend better, Gossip Girl Jessica Szohr or Easy A‘s Amanda Michalka? Both wore an Addict skater dress with a bra-baring sheer patterned top and full skirt on the red carpet, but Szohr rocked it with black sneakers and a chrome clutch at the US Weekly Hot Hollywood issue event while Michalka glammed it up in metallic pumps at the Nylon Young Hollywood issue party.
And of course there’s no trend that Lady Gaga hasn’t dipped her fingers—err, claws—into, and at the CFDA Fashion Awards she wore a spiky Thierry Mugler dress with sheer sleeves and a cascading train.
The sheer sleeves trend doesn’t have to come in black, as Lisa Snowdon showed in the electric blue dress with long lace sleeves by Isabel Marant she wore to the Summertime Ball at Wembley Stadium. Rose Byrne looked like an ice queen at the Damages Season 4 premiere in NYC in a sheer Valentino dress in muted greys. Even HRH Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is getting in on the trend in the suitably modest Erdem lace-sleeved dress in her unfailng navy that she wore on her Canadian tour.
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