The air outside is crisp and bracing, my cup runneth over with cheer, and I’m starting to wonder why my closet doesn’t contain more sequins. Yup, holiday-party season is here. And it’s high time I found something to wear.Luckily, this just happens to be my latest reporting assignment. I’m a style writer for Wirecutter, and since 2022, I’ve tested over 1,000 garments, including dozens of little black dresses. Most recently, I was tasked with shopping for festive frocks.Of course, there were some ground rules. For the purposes of this exercise, I was given a budget of no more than $300 per dress, and I had just two weeks to make my picks. Every style had to be immediately available for purchase.In my book, a great holiday-party dress does not need to meet any stringent criteria. It should have a fun (not too formal) silhouette and a dash of pizzazz, with bonus points for richly saturated colors and tactile materials, like velvet and tulle.To add an extra sprinkling of cheer — and a different point of view — I enlisted fellow style writer Nicola Fumo to join me on Mission: Party Dress. (Last summer, Nicola embarked on a similar quest, which had her seeking wedding-guest dresses.) For this guide, we both stuck to the same budget and timeline, but Nicola approached the task with her own style and fit preferences in mind.Our search began with (separate) scouting trips to Manhattan’s retail-packed SoHo neighborhood, where, in total, we visited 15 stores and tried on 55 dresses. We couldn’t find everything we wanted IRL (typical!), so we filled in the gaps with online research. For more-thorough vetting, we each settled on five styles to order. (The dresses were purchased by Wirecutter. As always, Nicola and I tested and reviewed these products with complete editorial independence, and we’re never made aware of any business implications of our recommendations.)As the packages rolled in, we inspected seams, jiggled buttons and zippers, and examined pleats, darts, and linings. We tried on each dress to evaluate its fit, cut, and general fabulousness, shimmying and twirling around our rooms to see how the fabric moved. Then we brought our favorites to Wirecutter’s Long Island City, New York, headquarters, where we compared notes and took mirror selfies (for posterity).In the end, we landed on eight dresses. They’re appropriate for all sorts of occasions — from cocktail hours to potluck dinners and office holiday celebrations. All of the dresses were in stock at the time of writing, but because these garments are highly seasonal, many won’t be around for long. So if you see something that tickles your fancy, don’t dillydally.