27 Best Petite Summer Dresses, Per A Short Fashion Editor

It’s sunny, I need a new dress, I’m 5’4″, so there’s only one thing to do: find the best petite summer dresses for 2026. I’ve already shown you the best petite wedding guest dresses, but now it’s time to extend the search further to bring you the best casual dresses, party dresses and everything else in between. So if you’re on the short side, then you’ll want to listen up, because as a fashion editor of 13 years, I would say I’m pretty good at navigating the petite clothing sections to find the best bits worth adding to your short-girl wardrobe. And on this occasion, my focus is fully on petite dresses.

If you’re petite (5’4″ and under) then you’ll know the struggle of finding a dress you love, only to have to hack off a good few inches at the tailors to even consider being able to wear it – without it being a trip hazard. But if you’re like me, a pile of dresses will sit in the ‘need to take to the tailor’ pile for months, even years before I ever get round to actually getting them done. Luckily, though, petite sections have come along way in recent years, so a lot of dresses and trousers now come in regular and petite lengths – yay!

So for this reason, I’m mainly showing you the petite summer dresses, but I’ve also sprinkled in a few from brands that don’t have a petite section (looking at you, Zara) that will still work for petite girls. Because I’m all for a midi dress being a maxi on me, or a mini dress not being as short as it looks on the 5’11” model on the website.

Let me first show you a few of the petite summer dresses I tried on from some of my favourite petite brands including Ro&Zo, Nobody’s Child, River Island and Never Fully Dressed.