Grandchild of the 70s

I try not to build up too much of a sewing stash (so say we all) but there are some things you can't leave in the shop. For instance, a number of years ago I picked up this gorgeous 1976 pattern, Style 1353, for 20c at a church fete.

When I was on holidays a while ago (I think it was the New Zealand trip where I bought also this) I bought lots of metres of a lovely turquoise rayon. I think it must be a rayon blend as it does not crumple the way some rayons do.

Looking through the stash I thought this fabric and this pattern would go together perfectly, so I... put them in a project bag and proceeded to ignore it for a year or so. But in September I thought the time had come to actually make this.

Before sewing the dress up, I had to, as usual, deal with the pattern. I have the pattern in its smallest size, which is pretty close to my measurements, but it was still too big. On my mockup I found that one side seam sat in the right place (pretty much the middle of my side) but the other was pulling around to the back. To fix this, I made a separate bodice pattern for each side and did a small bust adjustment on the side where the seam was in the wrong place. There was a lot of room in the back too, so I increased the centre back seam allowance from the top, tapering it to the original width at the base of the waistband. I had to take it in even more on the final dress.

When I made up the bodice I found the front was baggy. To remove the front bagginess, I left the centre front and gathering attached to the waistband and gradually lowered the rest of the front (to about the point where the pin is in the picture) then gradually went back the normal seam allowance just past the side seam.

You might also notice that in the picture there is an awful ridge in the waistband. This was because I was having delusions of neatness and thought I could hide the bodice seam in the lined waistband. I didn’t do that the second time and the ridge disappeared. The bodice is self-lined, so it has the proper drape, and the waistband is lined with a sturdy twill to hold its shape.

So far I have overlooked the most significant change I made, which was redesigning the neckline. Lovely as the pattern looks, a neckline that is open to the waistband is beyond the pale for me, so on my initial muslin I changed the pattern so the bodice pieces met three inches above the waistband. I wasn’t sure how the change of shape would work out given that I was changing a diagonal edge to one that had a right angle and then curved, but it ended up sitting very nicely.

This was my final pattern – you can see several iterations of changes.

However, every time I tried it on I kept thinking “is it too low?” It looked nice but, in the end, I came to the conclusion that I would probably never be comfortable wearing it, so I unpicked the bodice and started a new one. This is where the ‘lots of metres’ of fabric came in handy. I raised the neckline of the pattern by another 1.5 inches. Sadly, the shaping is not quite as smooth as the first version but, on the other hand, I am comfortable wearing the dress so it was the right decision.

On the whole I like this dress a lot. If I were to make it again I would change one more thing, which is to add a centre seam to the cape. The pattern has the cape cut in one piece which sounds like a good idea; however the bias drape means that one side of the cape hangs longer than the other. As much as having a seam would be a shame, I think I’d rather it be symmetrical.

For 70s makeup I didn’t have to ask youtube for advice; instead I asked my mum. The period-correct eyeshadow technique turned out to be “make it all blue” which was slightly concerning when it first went on but looked good with the dress.

The day I went out to photograph this dress was rather windy, meaning the skirt and cape could be 'shown off' to their full extent.

I can’t call it historical ‘cos my mum was in high school then

When I added -isms: understanding fashion to my sewing library there was one dress in particular that caught my eye. It was a 1972 gown designed by Bill Gibb and worn by the singer Sandie Shaw (who, I’m afraid, I’d never heard of) and used in the book as an example of ‘World Clothing’.

Inspiration dress at the V&A

The original design is described as incorporating influences from medieval dress, folk costumes and the hippy movement. When I was working out how I would interpret this design I decided that I wanted to avoid the earthy colours of the original and instead juxtapose the hippy design with more distinct/futuristic/tech-society colours: black and white with red highlights.

I still wanted to have a pair of busy dark/light prints and a box-patterned trim

We scoured the local quilting shops for coordinating prints and eventually found a set that went together nicely. I omitted the dangly embroideries on the sleeves and bodice of the original dress. For the front of my dress I made a slashed feature panel.

I achieved this look by alternating layers of black and white fabric; sewing lots of parallel lines across them and then cutting all but the bottom layer of fabric in between the stitching.

For some reason I didn’t find any information for this dress online when I was making it. Things I didn’t know included: there are two lines of boxes down the front of the skirt (I don’t think I had enough fabric for that), the original dress is lined and it closes with a back zip.

I’m pretty sure my mum told me to put a zip in it and I refused (“zips haven’t been invented yet” will be what I scribble on walls should I ever go mad) and my decision has resulted in a dress that is a bit looser than it might otherwise have been and is difficult to get on and off (especially at the mid sleeve gather-point – although the zip wouldn’t have changed that).  On the bright side, at least the back isn’t broken up by an ugly zip – because I didn’t know about invisible zippers then. (There are 3 types of zip in the world – featured, invisible and ugly.)

I’m not sure why my waistline ended up being so much lower than the original – it’s something I only noticed when writing this post.

About the time I made this dress I was becoming dissatisfied with the quality of my sewing. I had been using many shortcuts, so for this dress I decided to do things properly. This was the first piece for which I ironed out the seams during construction and finished each edge separately. It was a big improvement, but looking at it now it is still quite rough in places.

Notice how carefully the box is matched at the seam and how neatly the stitching lines fit between the print and the edge of the fold.

I can’t find the pattern I made but my recollection is that it was adapted from a vest pattern combined with many rectangles. Maybe I only used measurements for the rectangles and the reason I can’t find a pattern is that one never existed.