Vintage original 1950s cotton floral summer dress & bolero set in delightful deep pink beige white print
 
It's rare these days to find a matching 1950s summer dress & bolero set. In the 80s original 50s boleros were worn separately with jeans by rockabilly girls, or the summer dresses worn alone and boleros discarded. So I always get excited when I find a set and this still together, while likely seamstress made (no label but it's too nicely cut to be home-made I think), it is a jackpot find these days, especially when the colours match because they have not faded at different rates by being separate. No fading at all on this actually the print is very fresh looking but certainly an original print, and the dress has a metal zipper another sign of being original despite the pristine condition. Also the mother of pearl button on the bolero
 
So this is a UK size 8.
 
I can't help thinking what lovely summer dates our unashamedly romantic outfit may have seen in her life in the 1950s...so I imagine them in the video and as usual the full video story is on my Instagram!

The places she may have gone, why the bolero was an important addition as long summer days extended to slightly cooler evenings with many UK 1950s summer temp records still holding btw especially the summer of 1957 where entire summer days averaged 25 degrees and topped 30 June & July and holds record of 34.6 for June. But the evenings in June dipped dramatically so she'd have needed the bolero!

I had lovely testimony for another dress I bought from an elderly London lady about that summer and the outfit was similar print about her dates in Brighton and Margate etc and her future husbands car and how she led him a merry dance before saying yes. The following year 1958 saw The Crests release The Flowers of Love, and I can imagine this dress swaying to the dulcet do wop tones , and it is about just that
 
"I'm always picking petals from
The flower of love to see
If she loves me or
She loves me not
I wonder what's to be"
 
Every vintage outfit has a story, and it is so important in these times where clothes matter so little to most; a disposable world sadly. To me they are treasures, have multi layered rich experiences and were treasured by previous owners, and I hope they are to you too. The only question that remains is after all these years , and now our dress is pensioner age, but still every bit as as pretty as she was when young, is what dates you will take her on and love her? Her adventure is far from over.....