Vintage in a Heatwave

What glorious weather we've had here in the UK over the last week! I've enjoyed more than one evening with a G&T, look how beautiful the evening sunshine is over the water in my local park.

The heatwave has identified a gap in my wardrobe however, for cool, flowing clothes. All of my 1940s-1950s vintage and vintage inspired clothing is very fitted and not at all practical for hot, sunny days - shoulder pads and the extra layer of a petticoat would stifle me! On the BBC breakfast news this morning they had an interesting comparison between what we wear now in the summer, and what we were wearing in the 1950s - the contrasting photos showed topless men and bikini-clad women drinking beer in the park sprawled on the grass, versus neat rows of immaculately dressed gentlemen in sports shirts and ladies in neat dresses in their deck chairs.

I've made a list in my head of the summery buys I need to make, helped by watching A Good Woman (check out a fashion review here over on The Painted Woman's blog), with all its lovely 1930's day dresses and fabulous hats. The first purchase today was a 1930's style hat from a charity shop - modern, not vintage, but the label says you can squash it up and it will spring back to life, so that sold me right there and then! I'll be putting those claims to the test very soon.

Other items on my list are as follows:
- a playsuit
- 1920s/1930s 'sportswear'/tennis dress
- beach pyjamas
- apron dress

I thought about 1940's style high-waisted shorts, but again this is quite a fitted item of clothing. Seems I am leaning towards a 1930s look for summer, better start ebaying!