Although Swirl is a vintage brand most known for their wrap-around dresses from the 40s and 50s, the company was still manufacturing these ingenious pieces of clothing well into the 1970s and 1980s. Enter the Ava Bergman Swirl, my latest vintage clothing purchase and second Swirl dress (you can see my first one here). While I don’t tend to buy vintage from later decades, this dress was just too perfect to pass up (polka dots AND floral appliques that also include a snail!?).
Designed by Ava Bergmans, this Swirl incorporates a number of similar design features to its predecessors, including pockets (earlier Swirls have patch-pockets, whereas this Swirl has pockets sewn into the side seams of the skirt) and a very forgiving shape. Though this dress isn’t a wrap dress, it is essentially one big tube of fabric that is cinched in at the waist with a belt to fit the wearer.
While I absolutely adore this dress, there is one design feature that I would change – I would prefer to have the darker polka dot fabric extend all the way around the bottom of the skirt, and not just in the front. I definitely plan on taking a rub-off of this dress at some point and reproducing it, so that should be an easy fix.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find much (if anything) on Ava Bergmans, although there is a ton of information about Swirl dresses out on the web if you are interested (this article provides a great overview). That being said, I did think it was a nice homage to the designer that her first name is embroidered on one of the leaves of the applique flower.
