Floral Puff Sleeve Midaxi Tea Dress – M&S COLLECTION

A dress (also known as a frock or a gown) is a garment predominantly worn by women or girls consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice (or a matching bodice giving the effect of a one-piece garment). It consists of a top piece that covers the torso and hangs down over the legs. A dress can be any one-piece garment containing a skirt of any length, and can be formal or casual.

A dress can have sleeves, straps, or be held up with elastic around the chest, leaving the shoulders bare. Dresses also vary in color.

The hemlines of dresses vary depending on modesty, weather, fashion or the personal taste of the wearer.

M, or m, is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em (pronounced ), plural ems.

S, or for lowercase, s, is the nineteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and other latin alphabets worldwide. Its name in English is ess (pronounced ), plural esses.

A sleeve (Old English: slīef, a word allied to slip, cf. Dutch sloof) is the part of a garment that covers the arm, or through which the arm passes or slips.

The sleeve is a characteristic of fashion seen in almost every country and time period, across a myriad of styles of dress. Styles vary from close-fitting to the arm, to relatively unfitted and wide sleeves, some with extremely wide cuffs. Long, hanging sleeves have been used variously as a type of pocket, from which the phrase "to have up one's sleeve" (to have something concealed ready to produce) comes. There are many other proverbial and metaphorical expressions associated with the sleeve, such as "to wear one's heart upon one's sleeve", and "to laugh in one's sleeve".

Early Western medieval sleeves were cut straight, and underarm triangle-shaped gussets were used to provide ease of movement. In the 14th century, the rounded sleeve cap was invented, allowing a more fitted sleeve to be inserted, with ease around the sleeve head and a wider cut at the back allowing for wider movement. Throughout the 19th century and particularly during the Victorian era in Western culture, the sleeves on women's dress at times became extremely wide, rounded or otherwise gathered and 'puffy', necessitating the need for sleeve supports worn inside a garment to support the shape of the sleeve. Various early styles of Western sleeve are still found in types of academic dress.

Sleeve length varies in modern times from barely over the shoulder (cap sleeve) to floor-length (as seen in the Japanese furisode). Most contemporary shirt sleeves end somewhere between the mid-upper arm and the wrist.

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northern Myanmar. Tea is also made, but rarely, from the leaves of Camellia taliensis. After plain water, tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world. There are many different types of tea; some have a cooling, slightly bitter, and astringent flavour, while others have profiles that include sweet, nutty, floral, or grassy notes. Tea has a stimulating effect in humans, primarily due to its caffeine content.

An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the third century AD, in a medical text written by Chinese physician Hua Tuo. It was popularised as a recreational drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty, and tea drinking subsequently spread to other East Asian countries. Portuguese priests and merchants introduced it to Europe during the 16th century. During the 17th century, drinking tea became fashionable among the English, who started to plant tea on a large scale in British India.

The term herbal tea refers to drinks not made from Camellia sinensis. They are the infusions of fruit, leaves, or other plant parts, such as steeps of rosehip, chamomile, or rooibos. These may be called tisanes or herbal infusions to prevent confusion with tea made from the tea plant.