I've had this one done for a while, but while I was taking pictures of it a few days ago, a little thing that had bothered me while making it bothered me enough for me to rip the thing apart and change it. While making it, I made the arrows on the front skirt insert go the same way as the rest of them. Now, on the pattern, 2 out of 3 of the dresses are solid colour, so that design feature wouldn't show much anyway (real seams on a black dress don't magically glow white to show up, Butterick). So, yesterday I decided to cut out another front piece and stick it in there. Luckily I had enough fabric since it was mega cheap at the warehouse in Dallas. I think it's a crepe.
I did a fair bit of research when starting this dress (Vintage Patterns Wikia). People complained about the pleats on the shoulder not falling the same as on the original pattern picture. I hoped giving it enough ease would fix that. I don't think ease was the problem, so I may change this yet again and make it a little smaller around the waist. Right now it has a waist stay inside to help it, but it is rather big. Or extra comfortable. However you want to look at it! I really think the lack of shoulder pads is the reason for the draping discrepancy.
Second, for some reason they have a two piece back skirt instead of a 3 piece skirt from the original pattern, which lines up nicely with the darts on the back bodice. I don't know why, so I changed it to a 3 piece skirt. So there. Seems like releasing the pattern with a 3 piece skirt would have been simple enough.
Third, the original pattern didn't have the weird front shoulder closure that makes the whole neckline lay funny (lie funny? Oh geez. I'm losing my English). Again, the drawing on the front of the original pattern clearly shows buttons on the back of the neckline, which is also more normal for the time period. So I did that as well.
Fourth, nothing to do with vintage, but I shortened it about 3 inches. To make it look more modern. Go figure.
I'm starting to make a McCalls archive pattern and noticed a lot of differences between the original and that re-release too. I read a blog on McCalls where some asked a question about it and one of the designers said that they basically had to design the dress based on just the drawing on the envelope, and figure out ways to make it work. Now, this McCall pattern I'm working on currently it seems like they just tried to figure out the most roundabout and difficult way to make what was probably a simple pattern work. But whatever. It'll probably be 20x harder than it has to be. But the original pattern went for almost $900 on ebay a while back, so I'll never get a chance to look at it :P McCalls probably can't afford one of their own patterns either!
Now Vogue! Vogue does it right. The vintage patterns Vogue releases are copied from patterns in people's private collections that they can lend to Vogue so they can copy them. I don't know what Butterick does, but I'm guessing it is more like McCalls. Vogues method definitely makes for more authentic patterns and probably none of this McCalls 7154 weirdness.
Skirt difference. First iteration on the left. Please ignore that one picture is more flattering than the other, the arrow direction didn't do that :P
~Nikki
Technically can be considered part of the Vintage Pattern Pledge.
Although it wasn't from my actual vintage collection, it was still a reproduction! I say this counts for #3) a not costume-y pattern!
