Powder Hour · Jeffrey B 1980s Ditsy Daisy Gingham Baby Dress
Blue and white gingham poly-cotton · screen-printed ditsy daisies · self-tie waist · Jeffrey B · 1980s · tagged a vintage 0 (76cm) · 45cm length flat · fits approx. newborn to 3 months · excellent
Tiny daisies are printed straight over the top of the check, so from a distance it reads as plain gingham and only up close does the whole thing bloom.
Gingham checked with a ditsy floral overprint, which turned up on good baby dresses everywhere, and finished with a soft Peter Pan collar and a self-tie waist. It is tagged a vintage size 0, roughly 76cm, sized for the earliest months.
White eyelet lace edges the entire skirt hem in a continuous scallop, and daisy lace trims the Peter Pan collar. The bodice closes at the back with two small plastic buttons, and a self-fabric tie cinches in at the back waist. Both sleeves puff softly at the shoulder and finish plain at the cuff, letting the lace do its work everywhere else.
Material
Polyester, cotton, plastic buttons
Care
Hand wash in cool water or a gentle machine cycle inside a mesh bag, given the poly-cotton blend handles more robustly than natural fibres alone. Avoid wringing the eyelet lace, easing the water through instead. Hang or dry flat away from direct sun to protect the blue from fading. Iron on a low setting if needed, avoiding the lace trim directly. As with all vintage pieces with surface detail, buttons, embellishments, ribbons or applied decoration, this piece is not suitable for unsupervised sleep.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: Measured flat, 45cm from shoulder to hem. The bust measures 29cm across (58cm around), the waist cinches to 31cm across (62cm around) with the self-fabric tie, and the hip measures 55cm across (110cm around), opening out to a 60cm hem. Sleeve length is 12cm with the puff measuring 12cm across and the cuff 9cm. Tagged a vintage size 0, approximately 76cm, which sits at newborn to three months.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Excellent. No stains, no fading to the blue or the print, no pulls in the eyelet lace and no losses to the trim anywhere along the hem or collar. Both buttons are present and secure, and the self-tie waist is fully intact.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
This is a dress built for a very particular kind of blue, the sort that shows up in old family photographs standing next to a Sunday roast or a birthday cake. I imagine daisies quietly multiplying every time it is worn, the gingham slowly losing the argument to the print. It deserves one more good afternoon out, ideally with cake involved, before it goes back into a box lined with tissue paper.