Tag: dress

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Mock Frock

After seeing celeb after celeb wearing Roland Mouret’s fantastic Galaxy dress and spouting the true wonders of its inner spandex core, I was very excited to see that Vogue produced its own version of the Galaxy dress, Vogue 8280, and I bought it immediately.

Fast forward several months and I finally had the time (and the small waist!) to make this dress using the gorgeous grey tartan wool I’d bought especially for it alongside the pattern. It took me two days of sewing after quite a bit of prep work, but I thoroughly enjoyed making this dress and I absolutely love the end result! It may not have the magical spandex core, but it does have a fully lined bodice and a neat skinny belt I made to further acentuate the nipped-in waist.


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Party Princess

Why is it that we have to stop playing dress-up once we reach a certain age? Sometimes it’s good to have a special dress that makes you feel like the prettiest girl in the room, the one all eyes are on — like a princess, really.

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Jeepers creepers!

I’ve finally finished the 1930s Day Dress and debuted it at The Big Chill music festival last weekend. My boyfriend is rather fond of crisp linen suits and his beloved authentic Panama hat, so I thought we’d strike the perfect couple pose strolling around the Malvern Hills…

In Progress

There's no Depression here…

I’m terribly excited to finally have begun work on Folkwear’s 1930s Day Dress! I bought the pattern and both the vintage-print crepe de chine and the contrasting teal crepe de chine (which you may recognise from the kimono top a few months ago, but I set myself a goal that I wouldn’t make the dress until my measurements matched that of my dressmaker’s dummy, unpadded (yes, I realise it’s adjustable, but bear with me here). I’m happy to say that I’ve lost the 4 inchess off my waist that held the biggest discrepancy between myself and Susan (said dummy), and I’m headlong into a new project, thankfully with enough summer left for a vain hope to still wear it before the first frost!

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Not your average von Trapp dress

As you may have already read, I started work on a sheath dress made from a 1960s dress pattern. I am happy to report that the dress is now finished, though the end result bears little resemblance to the pattern sketch. Mostly because the pattern sketch does not show a sack of potatoes. Once again I fell into the trap of being entranced by the lovely, stylish drawings on the fronts of vintage patterns, choosing to ignore the little voice in my head that knows you can only trust a photograph on these kinds of things.

Inspiration

Green & orange oriental wrap dress

I saw this dress while looking through TopShop’s website recently:

I love it, but a) the bastards don’t make it in my size (what the hell, every other dress but not this one?? argh.), and b) I could make that!

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Vintage black satin evening gown

I made this in November 2005 with ten day’s notice. My boyfriend told me that his best friend’s birthday party was back on for the weekend. This wouldn’t cause too much alarm in most cases, but this was her 30th birthday and she was renting out a country house for an entire weekend with a black tie catered dinner on Saturday night.

Yes, I said “black tie” – that means I needed a posh evening gown in 10 days!! I don’t have posh money, but I did have a this pattern, Simplicity 5876, for a vintage evening gown that I fell in love with but had no occasion to make or wear