YES WHAT A SALE!  First of all the Avenue is unfortunately closing out all of their stores in the Portland area except for one in the Gresham suburb.  They are not taking any coupons, no rewards, and not honoring advertised sales like the current BOGOfree.  So after stopping at a store closing out, I figured out I could get WAY better deals at the open store.  Go figure! BUT I really like the Avenue clothes because they fit me well and are not too young for me, so I'm VERY disappointed we'll only have one store here --- although I imagine my Avenue credit card's balance will finally start going down!  :)

Anyway, this dress in the pictures below would've cost me just over $51 at the closeout store....however, by going to the open store, I got TWO of these dresses FOR $31!!!!! (One to fit me now, and of course one if I lose weight --- a size smaller.)  I had a 30% off coupon from shopping online with the Avenue, plus I had a $20 reward, plus the open Avenue store had BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!  BOW-CHICK-A-WOW-WOW!!!  On top of those 2 dresses I bought 2 casual jackets, another black dress (that I'm going to have cutoff & hemmed to top length), 1 white dolman cardigan in the picture below, 1 black dolman cardigan, 1 skirt, and a white semi-dressy tshirt like top.

So that's technically 3 dresses, 1 skirt, 4 cardigans/jackets, & 1 tshirt for......$136!!!!! (Oh, plus since I spent over $50 I got a free makeup bag).  I SCORED SHOPPERS!!!

Review originally submitted at http://www.avenue.com/clothing/Solid-Belted-Maxi-Dress.

Love this dress --- I almost didn't try it on because I have large hips (pear shaped,bubble butt) and I usually only wear empire style dresses. However, I am 5'10" and the waist is about 1/2 way between empire & my waist --- but that was a good thing because it still looks good. What I really love is that the belt is removeable and is elastic. I paired it with Avenue's Dolman Sleeve Cardigan, in white, (still available on their website and in stores) and removed the belt and BELTED it over the cardigan! LOOKS FABULOUS --- and that takes the huge fit of that cardigan (they run really really big) out and makes it perfect! The sizing is about right as I'm usually in-between sizes (22/24-26/28). Gee, since they had Buy 1 Get 1 Free, and I had a coupon and my rewards --- I bought both the 22/24 and the 26/28! I'll wear the 26/28 until I lose 20lbs to fit in the 22/24 more comfortably! I only marked the dress down to 4 stars because with my heighth it's not quite long enough but it'll do as I'm used to that.