The 1930s Ava dress has been a House of Foxy classic and best seller for many years. Here we explore why this dress has stayed the test of time and continues to be one of our staple customer favourites.

The Ava dress first graced our collection about 8 years ago following the successful search for a rayon crepe fabric that we were able to get our vintage reproduction prints created on successfully. Getting the right fabric for our designs was a crucial step towards authentic reproductions and opened the door to creating the styles we dreamed of making.

Furthermore, I was utterly focussed on designing the perfect vintage 1930s/40s tea dress - a style that I believed was critical for our burgeoning collection and, I will admit, was a personal obsession. Now that we had a fabric that behaved how I needed it to, i was free to experiment.

The tea dress really came into its own in the 1930s but saw its hey day in the 1940s - particularly the war time era. It covered all the bases - pretty for day, dressed up for evening dances but still practical and easy to wear and layer. Perfect still for modern life.

I had been collecting patterns, photos and originals for years and deciding on the details was a labour of love. I wanted this dress to work and flatter as many body shapes as possible. The best part of this dress is the waistband - which is a fairly wide panel that sits under the bust to nip in and really is the basis of the silhouette. This, together with the 6 panel flared skirt that skims the hip and drops creates a flattering line  that really seems to flatter almost all body shapes. 

I explored many necklines and there have been many styles that evolved and continue to evolve from this style. This style has seen sweetheart, high and square but without any doubt the V has been the most popular. If we were being fussy, I'd say that the neckline does make this dress more of a late 1930s - but would have been worn throughout the 1940s and maybe pinned back into a sweetheart shape with dress clips or bands. However, its pretty perfect as a V. Whilst it has a slight cross over which still makes it demure - the extra height at the back hugs the neck and creates the plunge without too much on show.

I love using shirring and gathers in our 1930s and 40s designs - something that you see on originals due to them being generally hand made and hence had the time for extras details you dont see in modern garments. So i wanted to ensure this dress had plenty of details. The Ava has shirring in the shoulder to create fullness into the bust and then gathers under the bust just above the tight waistband. Beautiful...

Another trick was to reduce the shoulder width of the dress so that the cap sleeve which also has gathers creates that iconic shape without making the shoulders appear too wide. These little cap sleeves are bound and have pretty gathers at the hem and into the sleeve head giving another nod to the silhouette of the time.

We know that many customers who purchased an Ava dress have come back for more regularly and resulted in us creating them in plains (once we were able to build up our fabric archive). This really is a dress that keeps on giving and will not let you down. It was recently profiled in a piece in the New York Times and many theatre and costumiers continue to tell us its one of their 'go to' options.

~we love this dress because its timeless, versatile, packed with details and ultra feminine... possibly perfect?