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This super-flattering dress has become my daily go-to - and it's under £50

This Mango dress is the perfect summer buy. (Mango)
This Mango dress is the perfect summer buy. (Mango)

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I’m a sucker for a floaty summer dress, but that doesn’t mean that I just buy any old number.

I have specific, and extensive, requirements that a dress must pass in order to end up in my wardrobe.

This checklist includes: flattering, versatile, dainty detail without feeling ‘princessy’ and with a statement, or interesting, sleeve.

Lots of my friends joke that it’s a wonder I ever have anything to wear at all, but one particularly understanding pal can always be relied upon to bring good suggestions to the table.

This time it was Flowers Cotton Dress from Mango that she excitedly described on the phone as I hurriedly searched for the link myself.

As soon as I saw it, the gorgeous button detailing down the front, the upbeat print, the puff sleeves, I knew it was to become my summer staple, and I wasn’t wrong.

I wear it with trainers when on my daily walk, I wear it with Birkenstocks when braving the supermarket queue and I wear it with slippers when moving from my makeshift home office to the fridge for another spoonful of last night’s dinner.

Buy it: Flowers Cotton Dress | £49.99 from Mango

It creates a feature out of my waist, it cleverly hides the parts of arms I’d rather keep hidden and it feels light, bright and summery.

Not to mention it brings to mind lots of similar designer versions that cost almost seven times as much.

I love the way it twirls around my calves in the breeze and how, even though it’s such a bold colour, it’s surprisingly versatile and easy to pair with accessories.

It makes me want to take to a blue pastel bike, a wicker basket on the front and pedal through the cobbled streets of downtown Paris, the breeze blowing the hem lazily as we go.

I know it’s not strictly an ‘essential buy’, but nothing’s ever felt more essential to me.