Supermodels, the first lady of America and the schoolgirls of TV’s ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ are all wearing LWDs

Forget the LBD. This summer is all about the LWD: the long white dress.

As temperatures have soared in recent weeks, ethereal, vintage-inspired frocks have emerged as the season’s sartorial hit, worn in various guises by a stream of high-profile women – from models Amber Le Bon and Karlie Kloss to the DJ Edith Bowman and, at the recent Nato summit, Melania Trump. A pregnant Pippa Middleton and her mother Carole both wore their take on white broderie anglaise at Wimbledon this month.

“This summer is about the details – the ruffled collar, the puff sleeve, a voluminous skirt, some pretty embroidery,” said Martha Ward, fashion director of Conde Nast Traveller magazine and a longtime devotee of the LWD.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Melania Trump at the Nato summit in Brussels earlier this month. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

“There is nothing more appropriate in the heat than a diaphanous white dress, and it can be layered with a chunky cardigan and lace-up shoes when the sun disappears, as it inevitably will. It’s a go-anywhere dress – the only No-no is if you’re a wedding guest.”

While many trends are born in the sketchbooks and strategy meetings of catwalk designers, the LWD has taken off this summer largely thanks to prolonged periods of blue skies and sunshine. Its popularity could also be fed in coming weeks by television: the demure, delicate white dress is exactly the kind of romantic style favoured by the finishing school pupils in Picnic at Hanging Rock, the current adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s novel currently being shown on BBC Two.

Set in Australia in 1900, the original Peter Weir movie adaptation has long proved a source of inspiration for designers, including Sydney-based Lee Mathews, whose summer 2018 collection paid homage to the 1975 film. “I’ve always loved that look, all buttoned to the neck, with slightly puffed sleeves and intricate, exquisite detailing,” she said. “There’s something very simple yet seductive about pulling on a pretty white dress and maybe a pair of boots, and just getting on with your day in the heat. I started my label in 2000 with six white dresses, and it’s become a signature look that runs through every collection, always being a bestseller with the hot summers we have in Australia.”

As Britons enjoy a taste of tropical temperatures, Mathews’s dresses in sheer linens, cotton lawns and voiles, trimmed with pintucks, scalloped edging and delicate lace, have been flying out of the warehouses of retailers such as Matchesfashion.com and Net-a-porter.

Ward boasts a collection of more than 50 original Victorian and Edwardian garments that make regular appearances on her Instagram feed, depicting a bucolic English lifestyle to nearly 60,000 followers.

“As a child, growing up in Northumberland, my mother always dressed me in antique Edwardian nighties and petticoats, and I’ve loved that aesthetic ever since,” she said, wearing a gossamer-fine, puritanical dress created as part of a collaborative capsule collection she designed this season with British label Queene and Belle. I do wear lots of vintage but also buy from Australian brand Zimmermann, US label Loveshack Fancy, Cabbages & Roses and French designer Isabel Marant, who all do the look so well.”