Winter Blast

By the time summer ended I had enough 40s’ dresses to allow me to dress like Bioshock as often as I wanted to. Unfortunately, it soon got too cold for short-sleeved dresses. (Actually, my air-conditioned office had always been too cold for them but it has become too cold for dress + cardigan)

So I started planning a winter 40s dress. I wanted my new dress to have bishop sleeves and a tie neckline and a longer skirt. I also decided to go with a belt rather than a waistband. This meant that even though this was supposed to be a new dress from a pattern I already had, I ended up having to redo every pattern piece.

 I found this extant pattern image which verified the authenticity of my design - source

It took many goes to get the bishop sleeves right. The (short) sleeve pattern I was using is puffed and I decided to keep the puff and the thin upper sleeve before expanding the sleeve again in the lower arm. The final pattern looked like this:

The bodice adjustments didn't all work properly at first; it took a fair bit of fiddling with the final garment to have an level waistline and it still dips a bit in the back. I have tried several times with this pattern to have the bodice gathered into the front waist seam but it never looks right. I ended up using a single pleat into the waist seam. There is still gathering at the shoulders. Now that I've done more pattern-fitting classes I think I might be better off completely redrafting this dress because, while it works, there are plenty of places where the fit is fudged or poor in ways that I now know how to adjust properly.

The fabric is a rayon print I bought in New Zealand. I bought about 5 metres of it with no project in mind. Buying substantial lengths for the stash is a new thing for me but it's pretty good for when I want to make something now and because my needing fabric and shops having good fabric cannot be relied upon to coincide. The rayon was a bit jelly to work with so I starched it before cutting but I couldn't say for certain whether it helped. I also underlined the bodice with black faille to make it a bit more stable.

I inherited the belt buckle from my great aunt's stash; it is likely to be old but has to be after 1966 - it still had a price tag attached in decimal currency (25c). The colour goes so beautifully with the fabric. I wasn't sure about the authenticity of the print at first but I did come across a couple of examples of black 40s’ fabrics with largish floral prints so I think it's close enough.

I started this dress on a Sunday and decided that I really wanted to wear it on the Friday night. I worked pretty constantly on it through the week but still had to be sewn into it 5 minutes before leaving because I hadn't had time to sew on the clip fasteners. The belt wasn't made yet either.

 The dress is finished now and I am glad to have 40s’ clothes as a viable wardrobe choice this season.