F and F Clothing at Tesco Julia Peplum Ponte Dress in Navy and in Red 14 – Detailed Review

The Julia Peplum Ponte Dress is a beautiful design, but will it work for me?

You may have noticed I’ve been giving peplum dresses a try lately (you can use the search box on the right to find all my peplum reviews on here if wished). Peplums are something that until recently I thought were only for women with smaller hips but after trying a few different styles of peplums I must admit that I am quite the fan!

The one thing I hadn’t found before was a peplum dress with a v-neck. I’d seen heaps of peplum dresses with a high neck, a round neck or a slight scoop neck, but nothing at all with a crossover or v-neck.

You can imagine how thrilled I was when I spotted the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress on the F&F Clothing at Tesco website.  

I initially thought the dress was black from its online photos but I spotted from the item description that it is in fact navy. Brilliant! I already have heaps of black dresses in my wardrobe so navy would be a welcome change.

And the other colourway of the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress is described as red, but it looks rather orangey from the stock photo on the website. Not a bad thing, and I was intrigued to see what the colour would look like in real life.

I added both dresses to my basket in a size 14.

The navy Julia Peplum Ponte Dress is a lovely colour. It is a gorgeously deep shade of navy and it suited my blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin perfectly.

It turned out that the red Julia Peplum Ponte Dress is indeed rather orangey, as the stock photo showed. However I quite like it!

The ponte fabric of these Julia Peplum Ponte Dresses is lovely. It is soft and stretchy and feels lovely on my skin. It seems like the kind of material that wouldn’t need regular ironing and so would wash and wear really well. Being 98% polyester and 2% elastane it has enough stretch to allow for a great fit but still retain its original shape.

What I particularly like about the skirt is that it does not have a split. All too often those splits go up way too high and can run the risk of showing people glimpses of one’s underwear but fortunately this would never be the case with this dress.

I love the fact that the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress could easily be worn for work, by adding a blazer or smart cardigan, or for a night out, by adding some appropriate accessories such as a chunky necklace and some sparkly heels. Not all dresses can be versatile like this one!

The Julia Peplum Ponte Dress has a hidden lining that is designed to smooth one’s lumps and bumps. The lining is 95% nylon and 5% elastane so it’s really comfortable and just feels like part of the dress itself. The skirt lining is really long and is almost as long as the dress itself so there’s so chance of any tell-tale lines underneath the dress.

However, despite my raving about the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress there are also a couple of problems with it. You’ve guessed it – there is a significant lack of boob room. I fully appreciate that most clothing is not cut for proportions like mine but it still makes me sad when dresses like this leave me needing to make the decision of either wearing a camisole or vest underneath or ordering a much larger size and therefore compromising on fit on the bottom half of the dress.

I also find the waist is too baggy. I think this is partly down to the design of the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress, as seen from the two stock photos at the top of the page. I think the crossover bust is intended to be ruched somewhat (I can only assume in order to disguise one’s tummy?) but unless you fit the dimensions of this dress perfectly it doesn’t look quite right and instead creates excess material at the point you’d least want it: on the waist, which is usually one of the smallest parts of a woman’s body so the intention would usually be to highlight it, not swathe it in more fabric.

Naturally, I tried adding a belt to the red Julia Peplum Ponte Dress to see if this would solve the problem.

The belt definitely helps to cinch in the waist of the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress and flare out the peplum a little more than before. However, it also causes the bust area to be even more indecent – I’d definitely need a vest underneath now!

Ultimately the lack of boob room and the excess fabric at the waist of the Julia Peplum Ponte Dress meant that these two weren’t keepers so they have been returned. It’s a great pity as I loved the cut of them but unfortunately – and this may seem unreasonable, I know – I do require my boobs to be covered, even if a belt can partially solve the waist problem.

Have you found a v-neck peplum dress that works for you?

If you’d like to read more of my F&F Clothing at Tesco reviews you can find all my posts here.