I wore a $36 Walmart dress to glamorous NYC events – the reactions I got were totally unexpected

It’s midnight at Crane Club and everyone wants to talk about my dress.

There are better things to discuss here — this place’s $5k membership fee; the hot young things from the hit sitcom “Adults” in the corner; the failed attempts of the over-50 crowd to talk to the runway models at a booth.

But people keep mentioning the dress, a sleeveless maxi with clashing retro prints on either side, as if someone stole a MoMA canvas and folded it in half across my body.

“Is it vintage Prada?” asks a runway veteran sharing my bathroom sink.

“Dries Van Noten?” guesses an ad executive at the bar.

“Miu Miu?” wonders a friend before reaching for my fries.

They’re all wrong.

This dress is from Walmart and I got it online for $36.

It came with free overnight shipping, along with the sneaking suspicion that I might be getting away with something.

If so, I’m in good company. 

On Instagram, women from California, Oklahoma and New Hampshire proudly show off their Walmart ensembles. Scoop jeans boast thousands of reviews from satisfied shoppers — more than some popular electronics or top-rated cookware on the site. And right here in The Post’s newsroom, a familiar refrain has begun floating through the halls: 

“Thanks, it’s Walmart.”

This “maybe they’re chic” identity pivot has been carefully planned by the trillion-dollar company.

In 2017, Walmart poached luxury exec Denise Incandela from Saks, directing her to turn the place where you buy your Keurig pods into a hub for easy, surprising style hacks. 

Four years later, Walmart hired Texas-born designer Brandon Maxwell — the whispered possible successor to Ralph Lauren — as a creative director of two in-house lines, Free Assembly and Scoop.

By 2023, Post managing editor Lia Eustachewich began seeing influencers on her Instagram feed wearing surprisingly smart pieces from the superstore.

“These were mom influencers who were stylish but busy,” Eustachewich told The Post while wearing an ivory Scoop slip skirt and matching blouse with a cropped black leather jacket in the office. “So I figured I’d give their recommendations a try — even though they’d likely been paid by Walmart to promote the clothes. But the outfits were good! So I haven’t stopped.”

The mom-seeding strategy appears to be working.

In February, Walmart reported a 40% climb in its Online Marketplace revenue, which relies heavily on fashion and accessories, from households making $100,000 or more a year, meaning that even women who could shop elsewhere are now grabbing Walmart pieces for their closets.

Is this a good move for stylish New York women — or a way to send $60 down the drain by optimistically smashing the add-to-cart button on a blazer?

I ordered nine items, priced $12 to $67, to find out.

First up was the Free Assembly Twist Front dress, which was $36 when I bought it, but is now marked down to $12.60. Online, Walmart has styled the dress with a Dior handbag and a pair of slingback heels, but I opted for a pair of $50 two-tone boots from Scoop. 

The print, which resembles current runway patterns from Prada and Dries Van Noten, was a winner with fashion insiders — even Vogue legend Grace Coddington, who nodded approvingly when I showed it to her at a book signing in the West Village. “Go to a real party in that one!” she declared. 

So off to the Crane Club I went.

The dress zipped up just fine, although the tie-top shoulders are sewn into the shoulders, so you can’t actually adjust the fit. That meant for me — and ostensibly for anyone with a larger chest — you’re going to show a bit more cleavage than what’s seen on the model.

In all the dresses I tried, the fabric puckered at the waist, waiting to be filled by a Kardashian-level booty that many women just don’t have. A pair of Skims’s padded $108 shorts solved that problem for me — but you shouldn’t need expensive shapewear to “fix” what should be an affordable outfit. 

Next up was a $42 Free Assembly navy blazer with burnished brass buttons and a pair of old Scoop jeans, which I wore to the office with the Scoop boots and received much praise for.

Even though the cut of this jacket was impeccable — it gives the illusion of a longer waist, buttons right where it should, and smooths out the back and shoulders — the material felt like Astroturf that had been treated with fabric softener, and it gave off an otherworldly sheen best described as “polyester sweat.” 

But it did look great in photos. The jeans were fine, and the boots — once again — were a massive hit. Easy to walk in, too.

The next day, I tried Free Assembly’s flocked $40 maxi dress, which was made with heavy, shape-holding denim and covered in tiny black polka dots. Because it was unlined, I paired it with a black Gap bodysuit. It was topped with a $67 checkered coat that looked like your favorite blanket ever, as tailored by an Italian seamster. 

I wore this Walmart getup to an art opening at Christie’s, where major dealers considered buying $5 million Basquiats while I hung out in clothes that are usually sold next to discount luggage.

Still, I got some sweet compliments from older female patrons — all clad in head-to-toe black Prada and Tom Ford-era Gucci — who found the Walmart of it all pretty delightful. 

“Good for you,” one woman in a Chanel bouclé jacket and matching skirt said to me, before leaving to put a deposit down on a De Kooning. 

The next day, I met Eustachewich for coffee in Rockefeller Center. She wore a Walmart fringe skirt from its Devil Wears Prada collection, which was designed in partnership with costume designer Molly Brown.

Paired with a Quince cashmere sweater and an ancient Celine clutch, it looked beyond chic — and it was awfully fun in motion, when the fringe seemed to hover around Lia’s body like a swarm of silken bees.

But apparently, those who want to test a Walmart ‘fit for themselves need to be quick on the draw.

“You have to buy the stuff really quickly if you want it,” she told me. “They sell out all the time.” Indeed, as over a dozen friends asked about my blanket coat, the supply dwindled to zero on the website. Same with the jeans, though many cuts have since been restocked. 

For my final Walmart trick, I wore the boots with a vintage black dress and pair of black Walmart tights to Theory’s holiday cocktails at the New York Public Library.

The room teemed with fashion editors, style influencers, Theory’s formidable womenswear designer Dushane Noble, and even the PR team behind Rihanna and Sabrina Carpenter. 

No less than eight times, I was stopped about my boots, which were dubbed “cool” and “chic” and “so great” by people in head-to-toe designer labels.

“Thanks,” I smiled. “They’re Walmart.”