Over the past few years while I have been working on my History Bachelors Degree, I have been doing a minor in Anthropology. I loved the idea of studying archaeology and I have so far found all of the classes that I have taken to be wonderful. One of the classes that I took was an introduction to archaeology, which discussed most of the major finds in archaeological research and their importance. I was especially fascinated with Lascaux Cave, which is a cave in southwestern France where these incredible paintings of horses and other large animals were created around 17,000 years ago, during the early Magdalenian period. They were done by multiple generations and are painted in shades of browns, blacks, and reds.
The first time that I saw photos of the Lascuax Cave, it took my breath away. I can't even imagine what it would be like to see it in real life! Unfortunately, years of visitors has meant that the drawings are deteriorating quickly. Due to that, I would never attempt to see the real thing unless I was doing genuine research on it (which is extremely unlikely since my interest is modern history). There are multiple museums where you can see a replica of the paintings instead, in order to conserve them as long as possible.
This is basically a long story to tell you that when I first saw this cotton print, the first thing that came to my mind was the Lascaux Cave paintings. Something about the loose and elongated way that the horses have been drawn in this print was so reminiscient of cave drawings in my mind that I immediately loved it. I thought that it would be a really interesting contrast to have this prehistoric print used for a 1950's, Dior styled dress.
For the pattern, I used a few different ones and also adapted them to better suit my idea. I was really inspired by the Fall/Winter 2008 Dior Collection where there were multiple high necked dresses with interesting bow or knot details at the neckline (like the one pictured below). I also was inspired by an image of 1950's party dress by Ceil Chapman from the mid-1950s that has a wide ruffle at the hem of the skirt. Lastly, I wanted it to have short sleeves so that I could wear it comfortably during the summer without burning my shoulders. Overall, this dress had a great deal of thought and planning put into it.
For the bodice, I used pattern B6704. This helped me hit two birds with one stone since I want to use this same pattern for a stunning rayon that I got recently and I wanted to test the fit on cotton before I dealt with finnicky rayon. Next, I used a basic circle skirt for the top part of the skirt, but added width all the way down from the waist so that I could have a little bit of gathering at the waist. I also cut it shorter than my pattern was, down to 48 cm long so that I could add more length with the ruffle. Lastly, I just cut out as many widths of fabric 37 cm long as I could fit in my yardage for the ruffle. If I had more of this fabric I would have added a one or two more widths of fabric for the ruffle, since I has really been hoping for some dense ruffling like in the Ceil Chapman dress. Either way, I am so pleased with the movement and volume that the skirt has even without a petticoat that I am not too upset that I didn't have any more fabric.
This dress is one of the very few where I was actually pleased with it as soon as I finished it. I usually need a few days (or weeks. Or months...) away from a project in order to be pleased with it - if I start wearing it right after I finish sewing it all I notice are imperfections and things that I would like to have done differently. This time the bodice actually fit really nicely with a perfect amount of ease without any alterations, and the skirt is absolutely perfect for twirling in! I had an idea of a 'fun' version of a Dior dress for this project, and I think that it definitely has all of the necessary trademarks of a Dior silhouette day dress.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable project that went surprisingly smoothly, especially after all of the pattern slicing and dicing!
Thank you for reading!
~Katherine
