One Tie, Two Ways to Wear It: Why Our Dresses Come With a Removable Waist Tie

Some mornings you want to feel pulled together — waist defined, everything sitting just so. Other days, especially out here where the heat sits heavy over the red dirt by ten a.m., all you want is a dress that skims past you and asks nothing of your body.

We think a good dress should be able to do both, which is exactly why Cybil — our cornflower blue linen shirt dress — comes with a removable self-fabric belt instead of a fixed waist tie.

It's a small design choice, but it's one we think about a lot. When you're making a dress in sizes 8 through 22, "flattering" can't mean one silhouette. A tie waist dress that only looks right cinched tight is really only designed for one body on one kind of day. Building the tie to come away completely — not just loosen, but lift off — means the dress adjusts to how you're feeling and built, not the other way around.

Wear it cinched when you want definition — pass the belt through the side loops, tie it at the front or off to the side, and you've got a waist-defined silhouette that works just as well for lunch as it does dressed up with sandals for a warm-weather occasion.

Wear it loose when you want ease — take the belt off entirely and Cybil falls into a relaxed, effortless shape. This is the version for long, hot days when anything sitting against your waist feels like one thing too many. The breathable linen does the work instead, moving with you rather than holding a shape.

Both ways are the same dress. Both are "right." That's the point of a removable tie: it stops the belt from being the thing deciding how you wear it.

We built Cybil with a classic collar, a button-through front, easy short sleeves and — because a dress should be as useful as it is beautiful — pockets. She's cut for everyday as much as she is for holidays, in a linen that only gets softer with wear, true to our whole approach: quality over quantity, fewer pieces you actually reach for, made to last past one season.

Shop the Cybil Dress — cornflower blue linen, removable tie waist, pockets, sized 8–22, $249.