This dress got moved up in the posting queue because I like how my hair turned out :) Check out those waves! I still need a bit of practice, but it's fun. This is a bit of a mash up, the bodice is a 1920's reproduction gown, and the skirt is modern, but reminiscent of 1920's flapper dresses.
It's a lovely dress, but this is another one of those reproductions where no one at the company actually got to look at the original pattern. I have no doubt that the original pattern was massively simpler than this one was. Constructing a dress based on the original drawing in my head I've already come up with 5 different ways they could have simplified the pattern, it is really absurd. I haven't read a single review that hasn't mentioned how fiddly and overly complicated it is. But, at the time, I wanted something 'simple', which means not having to draft up my own pattern. Which, as you may have figured out through past posts, never ends up being simpler.
I used some sort of rayon from Joann's. The purple is a super crappy fabric, but it had mostly the right drape, it was the colour I wanted, and it was already in my stash. Albeit as a lining, and it isn't really the quality you want as a main fabric, but whatever.
Changes/Issues ::
This wasn't 'hard' per say. Fairly easy, but ended up being somewhat of a hack job, sewing the neck band to the dress and all that. Which isn't in the instructions, btw. Also, the illustrations for the instructions aren't correct on the last step. Proof readers anyone?
I started out with a SBA of the underbodice and took out a bit of the front over bodice, so it wasn't overly billowy. And, as ever, the back didn't really fit well, which is super hard to fix with the way it is constructed. There were better ways to make that dress than a zipper up the center back. Just sayin. I ended up taking over an inch off of the back at the shoulder seam. Probably could have done more. We are going to leave it as is though. You can see in the picture that the back isn't quite at the highest standards of sewing. The neck band wasn't the right shape to lay quite right and the points of the neckband don't line up perfectly. I have a hook and eye holding them in mostly the right place.
Obviously, I didn't use the skirt portion of the dress. I wish I lived a life where I needed gowns, but alas.
A while back I tried to adjust the skirt from the McCall pattern to make it shorter, but it was too difficult with the bands and the drapes and everything. I still wanted to keep some of the bands, drapes, and semi-structure of the original pattern, so I found this skirt pattern in my stash that I thought would work. After making it, I was wandering around the internet looking at vintage patterns and saw a few flapper dresses that had almost the exact same curved insets in the side of the dress. I'm sure that deep down I knew this and it is why I decided on that pattern ;)
Probably could have made it fit a little better, but I wasn't about to try and line up those seams again. With the different fabrics, it was very obvious when they weren't perfect. I also underlined the yoke portions. The skirt is also unlined. It comes that way and I have so many slips that it seems sort of a waste to line things now!
Great pattern, no complaints. It'll take the absolutely perfect fabric for me to make it again though, that curved seam was most unpleasant.
Another check mark on the Vintage Pattern Pledge 2016! I'd say that with the different skirt and modern fabric that it comes across as more of a sundress and less of a costume, so I'm putting it under 'wearable vintage' category. I think I should have been more ambitious in my pledges, being obsessed with vintage patterns, I haven't really challenged myself yet! I guess making something that resembles 20's fashions is a bit of a stretch for me, I don't generally like that era on me, so I'm branching out a teeny bit.
I'd say, even with the fiddliness of the pattern for the bodice, I really like the look and how it turned out, so for that reason, I would recommend it, as long as you are comfortable with fitting patterns to yourself. Next time I'm going to close up the back and probably have it close with snaps on the side. I'm going to say that that is more likely how it was originally as well.
~Nikki
