J.Crew: Cotton Bonbon Dress Review

This is J.Crew's Cotton Bonbon Dress (item #15324), which retails for $78.  The dress is available in navy, spearmint, dark charcoal, and seashell.  The dress is alpha-sized, and J.Crew describes the dress as such:

A sweet, summery confection in our signature soft cotton piqué, featuring a tiered ruffle skirt in cotton lawn and delicate picot-edged cotton-lawn trim around the neckline and arm opening. Scoopneck. Sleeveless. Falls above knee: 20" from natural waist. Import. Machine wash.

So I have to say that I have been waiting to see this dress in person for awhile now.  I had e-mailed my personal shopper about the "skirt" the model is wearing in the picture below from the look book.  She informed me that it was the Cotton Bonbon Dress, and e-mailed me the same pictures that are online.  I held off placing a pre-order, and then I happened to see it in-store, and I'm glad I did!  Just for the record, I love the styling in the picture below, especially the Bouquet Sash belt paired with the other flowers.  

[And as a complete sidenote, does anyone else think that this is a different skirt in the picture below?  As in, not the Cotton Bonbon dress?  The skirt seems lighter, shorter, and flowier than the dress.]

I tried this dress on in an extra small, and in the spearmint color.  I don't remember seeing the seashell color in-store, but I saw the other two.  As for sizing, I think you need to size down in this dress.  I saw this in the store a couple of weeks ago, and I was disappointed.  It looked huge on the hanger, and not nearly as cute as I was hoping it would.  Aside from the sizing down issue, the dress fits comfortably.  I think that front-on, the dress creates a decent silhouette.

The dress is essentially a tank top on top, with a lightweight tiered cotton skirt.  The dress has a drop waist, which I'm not too crazy about.  While I think it helps elongate the torso, I just think the proportions are a little off.  The tiered skirt is made of a nice, lightweight cotton, and is lightly lined.  I think the length was a little long on me.  I would have preferred a casual dress like this to hit above my knees.

I don't think that this dress adds that much volume, which is always nice.  I think this is partly because of the drop waist and the top of the dress's being a tank, and partly because of the light cotton used to make the bottom of the dress.

The neckline of this dress is a somewhat deep scoopneck, and both the neckline and armholes are trimmed with the same lightweight cotton that the skirt is made out of.  As described, it has a double layer picot trim, which I think is pretty cute.  My issue with the top is that the sizing is a bit off.  The rest of the dress fit very comfortable, but as you can see from the close-up picture below, the top gapes just the tiniest bit on the side.

I left this dress behind.  I was pretty disappointed by this dress, just because I'd been waiting for it for a few weeks.  I did think it was really comfortable, and I think a few subtle changes could have improved this dress a lot.  I think it's a dress that you can style a lot of ways, and if (and I still remain highly doubtful) that is the same dress that the look book model is wearing, then I love that you can layer pieces to basically turn it into a skirt.

What do you think?  Do you like this dress?  Have you tried it on or seen it in person?  Are you disappointed by the inconsistent sizing?

And please, does anyone have any thoughts on the skirt versus the dress issue on the look book model?