Powder Blue Peter Pan Collar Set 'Mizuasagi'

A cream bow blouse over a long powder-blue skirt laced at the waist, lace below

Powder blue and cream is the palette of a nursery and of a very good tea set, and this set wears it. The blouse is cream rather than white, with a rounded collar, short puffed sleeves, pintucks and a blue-grey ribbon at the neck. The skirt is long and powder blue, gathered into a high waistband laced with two ribbons, its hem scalloped, with cream lace showing beneath. The cream of the blouse and the cream of the lace match, so the blue sits between two warm tones.

It is the coolest of the laced-skirt sets in colour and the calmest to look at, and it is the one that photographs best in daylight.

The name, Mizuasagi, is water-blue, the pale blue-green of shallow water, and the traditional name for this exact shade.

The lace is a separate layer sewn into the skirt. The cloth is a polyester-cotton blend, light in the blouse and fuller in the skirt. Both wash cold and hang.

Wear the blouse tucked into the laced waistband with the bow at the neck, and white trainers, as in the photograph. It is the set for a summer morning and a garden with a table in it.

From across a street it is cream over pale blue with cream at the hem. From close the rounded collar has its curve, the lacing runs through eyelets, and the scalloped hem sits over the lace like a wave over foam.

It goes with white socks, a straw bag and nothing that raises its voice. It is the laced set for someone whose favourite word is calm.

The blouse alone is a cream blouse with a bow, and the skirt alone is a long pale blue skirt with lace at the hem, which goes with a white T-shirt and sandals. As a set they are the look; apart they are two summer things.

The waistband is wide and lightly boned at the front, so the lacing pulls it in without folding, and the two ribbons tie in a bow over the blouse. The blouse buttons behind the pintucks. The lace at the hem is cream, matched to the blouse, and cut longer than the scallops so it always shows.

The blue in this cloth is soft and slightly grey, the blue of a duck egg rather than a sky, and it does not go pale in strong light the way a brighter blue would. It photographs the same at noon and at six.

Sizes run from S to XL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.