The Vintage Dress, Part I

I love Vintage Dresses. In part, I think, because I have a body that is better suited to the curvy designs from the 50's when women were allowed to have hips and breasts, before the days of Twiggy - bless her skinny little butt.

Up first - an actual vintage dress that I purchased on Ebay back in December.

Fabric: probably some blend of silk with acetate or rayon. Those were the days before mandatory labeling. It doesn't feel like it's all silk.


Construction:
The entire dress is underlined with silk organza.
I am a true believer in silk organza as an underlining. In addition to providing support and shape to the garment, it goes a long way to preventing wrinkles. This dress was shipped to me folded up and stuffed into a Tyvek USPS envelope. I took it out of the envelope when it got here, shook it out and hung it, and found I did not need to do any serious pressing.
In addition, only the bodice is lined with china silk (habotai)
Lots of handstitching to attach the china silk lining to the lower portion of the bodice and at the underarm to the sleeve.
There is a 2 piece sleeve, and they used a 1/2 gusset underarm on the bodice


Seam allowances through the skirt portion are all 1". Seam finishes - straight stitch 1/4" from the edge, then trimmed with pinking shears. The result is a seam finish that doesn't add bulk, and can be altered. I liked this so well I decided to use same on the next 2 vintage dresses that I will review.

More pics are here


up Monday:


Note to Kim:
Def Shoes! Fabric next although that I'm seriously trying to curtail that spending. Yarn buying appeals almost not at all right now, as it represents to me a project that I can't possibly get to, if I use all the yarn I have first, in this lifetime. Right now the yarn stash feels more like a millstone than a benefit.