house of cb corset dress Clothing : Mini Dresses : 'Pietra' White Mini Wear yours with vertiginous heels and one of our Ash marabou sleeve jackets House Of CB Charmaine Corset

In The Hunt, we search the stores for a basic item that every woman should have

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Christian Dior was the first to name the early evening frock a cocktail dress in the late 1940s, and in doing so allowed magazines, department stores, and rival Parisian and American designers to promote fashion with cocktail-specific terminology. Diors New Look collection, which included dresses and blazer sets with cinched waistlines and voluminous skirts, defined a generation of style more versatile than ever before

Shoulder pads and classic V-neck detailing make this dress ideal for whatever cocktail party is on the calendar

Ruched details with slit

When Aberra launched the label in the 1980s, she pared down wedding fashion, eliminating the frilly embellishments so trendy for the era