Forget your cap sleeves, leave your simple silhouettes behind! This year, sleeves are a staple. Designers were letting sleeves speak for themselves, with billowing silhouettes and loud prints. Let’s take a look at the most stylish sleeves this year.

Bishop

A bishop sleeve typically features a fitted sleeve towards the top and is lightly flared below the elbow, which gives it a billowing silhouette. Alejandra Alonso Rojas expertly creates a bishop sleeve with a sweater knit material, and Dennis Basso’s wooly blouse is paired beautifully with a leather skirt. Duru Olowu’s contrasting bishop sleeves are the perfect detail for this fall coat, while Mulberry’s bishop sleeve ends in the perfect Marabou feather detailing.

Bring in the bishop sleeve with these fabrics:

Cape

Cape sleeves are absolutely beautiful, with a lovely drape that flutters in the wind. Emilio Pucci’s vibrant prints really do these sleeves justice, and Lela Rose’s woolen ensemble is perfect for a holiday in Sweden. Mulberry went full-on cape, throwing one over long sleeves in another stunning style, while Valentino’s absolutely striking dress features a phenomenal cape sleeve and collar, paired beautifully with a silk head wrap.

Create cape sleeves with these fabrics

Flounce

A flounce is ideal for adding movement and just a little bit of detail to sleeve. Gucci’s dress features a baroque style print with longer flounce sleeves, while Orla Kiely and Prabal Gurung utilize much smaller flounces. Tanya Taylor’s lovely wrap dress has a beautiful purple color and the perfect little 3/4 flounce sleeves.

Feature a flounce with these fabrics:

Mutton

A Leg of Mutton sleeve, or simply mutton sleeve, features a bit of a poof at the shoulders that taper down the sleeve. Elie Saab’s soft pink sweater has the perfect amount of poof while La Vie Rebecca Taylor’s features just the smallest amount. I love how Marissa Webb adds a mutton sleeve onto a traditional button-up, which looks beautiful when rolled up, and Veronica Beard’s blouse is perfect with mutton sleeves and a Victorian floral.

Give your garments a leg up with these fabrics:

Poet

Poet sleeves are similar to bishop sleeves, although they billow all the way through and feature a flounce at the end of the sleeve. Anna Sui’s inserts an extra flounce near the elbow for an eccentric take on an eccentric sleeve, while Elie Saab creates a garment worthy of the poet sleeve. Kimora Lee Simmons simple dress is ideal for these sleeves, and the embroidered detailing on the shoulders are sublime, and Luisa Beccaria’s white dress is very “Romeo and Juliet.”

Wax and wane over these fabrics:

What sleeves will you be sewing? I love those cape sleeves, but I am desperately in need of a poet sleeve dress.