Good dresses form the backbone of summer wardrobes everywhere. They’re easy to throw on and once you find a great one no other piece of clothing will work as hard, or for as long. You’ll return to it week after week, season after season, year after year, regardless of trends or occasion.

Looking for a new one is a bit of a faff though so we gathered 12 women with different opinions and different styles to do the hard work for you. They were put in a room with over 2,000 dresses from hundreds of brands organised into four useful categories. We made them look at every single dress, they tried on 600 and finally edited them down to the best 120.

Each and every dress was put to the vote. It only made the cut if the majority of the panel agreed it looked good and represented value for money. So we really can say, with some authority, that these are the very best summer dresses of 2014. Get them before they sell out.