I am writing this post from sunny England, where I have just started a Master's degree in Holocaust Studies at Royal Holloway University of England! I finished this dress and got photos of it in Banff, Canada, but with all of the busyness of moving abroad, I decided to wait before posting these photos. Unfortunately, I no longer have easy access to the most beautiful mountains in the world (I might be a bit biased), but I ended up bringing this dress with me so I am excited to get the chance to wear it in London!
This dress was inspired by The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, a show set in New York in the 1950s that has the most incredible costumes. Every single costume that Midge Maisel wears in the show is something that I would spend years to make if it mean that I could dress like that. A few of the 1950s styled dresses that I have made in the past are reminiscient of Midge's wardrobe, but I really wanted to make something a bit fancier because she has so many stunning evening dresses in the show. I have included a few of her costumes above that were an inspiration to me, including bows, low-V back necklines, and dropped waistlines.
A few years ago I discovered that the cutest brand ever (Rifle Paper Company) sold fabric, and I was absolutely thrilled about it. I was less thrilled by the price, but luckily my neighborhood quilt shop at the time had a bunch of prints from the older collection on sale. I had kept my eye on this print for a long time before I found it on sale, and I was so excited that I could finally get it. This is from the Peacock collection at Rifle Paper Company and it is the softest, most flowy quilting cotton I have ever worked with. It has accents of gold throughout the print as well as jaguars, stags, and lemon trees, making it into the cutest tapestry-looking fabric I have ever seen. Of course, I needed to make a dress worthy of the beautiful print. I loved the idea of making this vintage Simplicity pattern for the first time because the style reminds me of dresses that Midge wears in the Marvelous Mrs Maisel. I cut the dress out almost immediately after buying the fabric, made a minor mistake while cutting it out, convinced myself it was a huge mistake that would ruin the whole thing, then abandonded the project for a year (and yes, this is not the first time I have abandoned a project for this amount of time then made it in about a week once I actually managed to start working on it. There might be a pattern in my M.O.). This summer, as I went my project bags and donated the sewing supplies that I no longer needed or wanted, I decided to get this project over with.
The funny thing was that the mistake I made while cutting it out was so slight that it actually did not make any extra work for me, but I have been stressing about this for months.
Thankfully, I forced myself to work on it and I ended up having a great time with the pattern. This vintage sewing pattern has some stunning details, such as bows, fish-eye darts to give the bodice shape, and an interesting skirt style where the center front panel goes up to under the bust while the rest of the panels curve down to become a dropped waist. I thought that this would be a painstaking process to sew the garment, but it was actually a breeze!
The pattern of the fabric does hide some of the details, but I am so proud of my work on this that I don't even care if the complicated elements are evident or not. The pattern has such a unique method for creating this shape, with the skirt panel going up to just below the bust in the center front, and the bodice then going down to the hips at the sides and back. It creates an elegant 1950s shape along with the fisheye darts in the side and back panels. If you look at the dress on a hanger, it keeps its shape all on its own, no boning or extra corseting necessary.
My favourite part of using vintage patterns is for this exact reason - the methods that were used are so much more elevated than the methods that are used now, since so many patterns are created for ease of use and to make out of stretchy material now. There are, of course, still really beautiful sewing patterns available now that are new designs, but so much can be learned from using vintage patterns. The seamlines, dart positions, and sewing methods can create an incredible shape and design without even having to wear special undergarments underneath. If I wanted a more 1950s shape, wearing a bullet bra and other specialized underwear would certainly be helpful, but for the vintage but still modern style that I prefer, this is the perfect way to accomplish it.
I don't usually make fancier dresses, since I try to make dresses that are really wearable for my everyday life, but I think this dress is a nice mixture of elegant but still wearable in my life. However, I definitely wanted to take advantage of making a nicer dress and get photos in a nicer location. Luckily we were visiting Banff National Park this summer, so I brough the dress along and got photos of it in the beautiful Farimont Banff Springs Hotel.
Despite the rough beginnings of this dress, I am so happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to wear it around London this year!
Thanks for reading,
~Katherine
