I have been buying summer dresses since 1985. This is the first one I have written a letter about
I have been buying summer dresses since 1985. This is the first one I have written a letter about
Six things the Gloria gets right that the others get wrong, from a customer who checked every seam.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
I am Maggie, I am 67, and I want to say at the start that I do not work for anybody and I have never made a dress in my life. What I have done is buy them, for forty years, and be let down by most of them.
The one I am writing about is called the Gloria, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I own it in two colours, women ask me about it at the market, and when the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Here is what forty years of buying taught me. Summer dresses at our age come in two sorts. The sort that cling where you would rather they did not, and the sort that hang off you like a bell tent with a neck hole. Season after season I bought one, regretted it, and bought the other.
Clinging or a bell tent. I had quietly settled for the tent.
The Gloria is the first dress I have owned that is neither, and having gone over it like a suspicious woman goes over a bargain, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The morning it arrived. I was fully prepared to send it straight back.
The shape starts under the bust, not at your waist
The dress gathers just under the bust and falls loose and full from there, so everything below is skimmed, not reported on. There is no waistband because there does not need to be one. I sat through a long lunch, stood up for the photographs, and never once rearranged myself.
It falls from under the bust straight past everything I am self-conscious about. The most forgiving dress I own, and it does not look it.
Christine B., NantwichIt pulls on over your head, and that is that
No zip, no buttons, nothing to reach round the back for and nobody to ask for help. Over the head, a shake, done. Getting dressed takes less time than the kettle, which at our age I consider a genuine feature.
On over my head and done. My shoulders do not do back zips any more and this dress never asks.
Margaret E., CongletonThe details look hand-finished
There is a fine crochet trim running down the neckline and a band of lace at each cuff, and they change the whole character of the dress. It reads as something from a dear little shop, not something run off by the thousand. People assume you paid three times what you did.
The crochet trim down the neckline. This is what the photographs undersell.
The little crochet edge is what everyone comments on. It looks handmade and expensive and it was neither.
Dorothy S., SandbachThe sleeves cover the tops of your arms
Elbow-length, ending in a soft lace-edged flounce, so the tops of the arms are covered and it still looks like a choice rather than a cover-up. Most summer dresses give you bare shoulders or nothing. This one got it right.
The cuff. Lace band, soft flounce, arms covered, nobody hot.
Finally sleeves that cover the tops of my arms and look pretty doing it. I have stopped carrying a shrug everywhere.
Pauline H., NorthwichThe hem moves, so the dress looks alive
It falls to mid-calf and ends in a deep gathered flounce, so it swings when you walk instead of hanging there. Movement is what makes a loose dress read as graceful rather than shapeless, and this one has it built into the hem.
It moves beautifully when I walk. I feel dressed, not draped, which is a first for a comfortable dress.
Eileen T., WarringtonFive colours that go with what you already own
The soft beige, a red, a blue, a pink and a purple, all in the same speckled watercolour print. Every one of them sits happily with the sandals and cardigans already in your wardrobe, which is why the women who buy one tend to go back. I started with the beige and went back for the blue.
The five of them together. Choosing one is the hardest part of the whole business.
I bought the purple, then the beige. They go with everything I own and I have had comments on both.
Maureen C., CreweThe Gloria, against the dresses you have been buying
You can find a summer midi for sixty pounds almost anywhere. I know, because I have bought a great many of them. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Cling to the middle, or hang like a tent
A zip or buttons you need help with
Plain edges that look mass-made
Bare shoulders, or hot sleeves
A flat hem that just hangs there
Falls loose from under the bust, skims everything
Pulls on over your head, no closures at all
Crochet-trimmed neckline, lace-edged cuffs
Elbow sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
A deep flounce hem that moves when you walk
About the price
The Gloria is £28.95 at the moment. It was £58.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are clearing the summer stock as the season turns, and once it has gone it is gone until next year. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that at that price I did not deliberate long over the second colour, and that the popular colours were already thin in the middle sizes when I went back.
I also did what I imagine you are doing now and read the reviews before my first order. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
Folded and ready for the drawer. It rarely makes it that far.
If you have ever wanted a summer dress that skims, breathes and looks like you chose it with care, this is the one I would put in your hands myself, while the colours are still in stock.
Maggie
GLORIA | Watercolour Midi Dress
- Falls loose from under the bust, skims the middle
- Pulls on over your head, no zips or buttons
- Crochet-trimmed neckline and lace-edged cuffs
- Elbow sleeves that cover the tops of the arms
- Deep flounce hem that moves when you walk
- Five colours, UK sizes 8/10 to 18/20
- FREE UK delivery & 100% happiness guarantee
Summer stock clearing now. The popular colours go first.