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Finally, Anthropologie Is a Little Bit Slutty

My long-held prayers have at last been answered.

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I am an Anthropologie apologist. No matter what deranged epaulets or violent ruffles the brand slaps on its otherwise perfectly good garments, I always find myself coming back for more. Sure, the stuff is overpriced and often ridiculous, but it’s also cute and fun and comes in colors with names like “heliotrope,” so I say let it live.

The one thing I’ve always wished Anthro would be, though, is a tad sluttier. Nothing crazy — no need for full-on cleavage or total backlessness, no complicated straps or uncomfortable cutouts necessary. Just a hemline or two that didn’t graze my knees, or a clavicle-bearing top that bore a little more than just a frickin’ clavicle. Anthropologie, I’d often thought, could be a prime vendor of slozy if only it would just get a little more daring. There is even documented evidence of my wish from way back in 2015, when the world wasn’t hurtling toward its inevitable endpoint quite so obviously:

But lo, finally, today, while browsing Anthro’s maddeningly middle-of-the-road Happy Harvest sale — 15% off bottoms, 20% off tops, and 25% off jumpsuits and dresses, which, okay, thanks, but that’s not REALLY enough to defray the cost of this baffling yet compelling $524 plaid ball gown — I spotted them: honest-to-god slutty dresses.

One would be a fluke, but two feels deliberate, and there are even more examples among the other dresses, jumpsuits, and tops; they look, as a friend rightly pointed out, like “higher-end Urban Outfitters mixed with Reformation.” Which is all that I have ever wanted! It’s not that I would like all brands to smush together in an indistinguishable mass, frantically chasing the whims of a fickle consumer, but I’ve been looking for a sort-of-sexy middle ground between the flimsier Going Out Tops of my youth and the sternum-and-thigh buffet that’s been proffered up to replace them. And I am happy to find that happy medium here, nestled alongside the trademark nonsense I’ve come to loathe and love.