What to Wear to Dinner | Blue 1950s Style Embroidered Eyelets Dress

If I had to choose only one style (silhouette) of dress to wear ever again it'd be an easy choice for me. Fitted to the waist with short sleeves and a full midi-length skirt, 1950s style. And would you know it... that's exactly what I'm wearing here. The blue Seren dress from Hobbs has been on my radar ever since I featured it in my post about short wedding dresses earlier this year - the perfect blend of baby blue, embroidered eyelet fabric, midi skirt and t-shirt style top.

If ever I had - or wanted to have - a signature style dress, this would be it. The matching underslip (for modesty) comes with it, and it fits beautifully. It has a touch of the retro about it: a little bit Mad Men style, a little bit Grace Kelly... it only needed white gloves and a pillbox hat and I'd be right there in a Hitchcock movie.

Well I may not have been on the set of a Hitchcock classic(!), but I did wear it to dinner last weekend in Cheltenham after Hobbs kindly let me choose a dress from their occasion dress collection. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant - Mr. Summers also got dressed up in a suit and tie, and I'm glad we did because it was very classy and I felt getting dressed up was entirely appropriate. (More on that soon in my third Cheltenham outfit and a review of the hotel. And a video...!)

This beautiful dress doesn't need much accessorising, but it does need a belt and the flower belt that I bought many moons ago doesn't get worn very often - being all neutral colours meant it complemented the baby blue perfectly. I have so many dresses that I'm looking forward to wearing this summer; I just hope we'll get a half decent one like the one we had last year (it lasted just two months but that's good for the UK).

Are you a big fan of summer dresses like me? What's your go-to style... do share in the comments!