Two of my friends got married last weekend, and of course this was an opportunity to make a new dress for myself. I’ve always liked making new dresses or outfits for special occasions like New Year’s or weddings. In fact, the one time I wasn’t wearing a dress I made myself to a wedding, somebody else was wearing the same dress. It was a bit awkward, but we had a laugh at it in the end.
So this time I decided to stick with what I know, and make a new dress. With the dress code being cocktail, and already a fabric from my stash in mind, I started flipping through some books and Pinterest for some inspiration.
According to The Dress – 100 ideas that changed fashion forever (Marnie Fogg), the concept of a cocktail dress like we know it today was most popular in the 1950s. When people dressed differently for specific social occasions, such as cocktail parties. Christian Dior even described it as an ‘elaborate and dressy afternoon frock’. The dress for a cocktail party was different from a dress you would’ve worn to a dinner party because, according to Dior, it could use ‘a little strapless or very décolleté design’. So my dress could have wow factor, just like I like it.
When I already know what fabric I want to use, I also let the fabric guide me in some kind of way. The fabric I wanted to use is a damask weave with red, gold, and a little black. I got it from my father in law when he went to India. Normally it would have been used for a sari, so it has a really beautiful gold design on the edge of the fabric. This gold trim was a detail I really wanted to come forward in the design of my dress. So I threw it over the mannequin, and started pleating and pinning. Already quickly came the idea of doing a deep V-neck, an open back and a full pleated skirt. Seemed simple enough, but I wanted to use the gold trimming in the fabric to form the V-neck. Starting at the waistline, and go up and open out into the neckline. So not so simple.
I started with make a test garment, or a toile, for the top, because I didn’t want to mess it up and butcher the fabric. For the first test I redirected all of the darts from the bustpoint going to the side seam, and then opened it further out to the center front. I opened the dart until the V-neck and center front were aligned. By doing this I could put the now straight center front/neckline parallel with the gold trim in the fabric, and by closing the dart create the gold center front and neckline I want.
The result wasn’t to my liking, so I made a second toile. First, the V-neck should be lower, and second the continuous dart from side seam to center front felt really odd. So for the second toile I kept the original dart, ending at the bust, and created a second dart to align the neckline with the center front. The second dart being parallel to the first dart.
This already felt more natural. I liked the geometrical alignment of the functional dart and neckline dart way more than the continuous dart from the first toile. But something was still off. The dart for the neckline felt a bit random, and the endpoint of the dart ending at the point where the V-neck started could cause trouble if not stitched 100% perfect. So I decided to transform the dart into a pleat, and this was really the vision I had in mind.
With the top being finally to my liking I moved on to the actual fabric. I wanted the design of the gold trim to really be symmetrical, so I spend some time pinning the fabric in place before cutting. I also did this for the hemline of the skirt, although it would be less visual if not symmetrical.
First I completely finished the top of the dress, before adding the skirt. For the back I had chosen a tulle fabric. So I first finished the neckline and armhole of the front, before stitching the side and shoulder seams of the tulle back between fabric and lining. The result of the frontpanel was really what I was aiming for. The gold trim was really popping, and the dart and pleat looked really natural. Also by switching to a pleat, instead of a dart, the breaking of the gold trim felt a bit more natural.
The skirt part was really easy. Just some nice big pleats to give the skirt some fullness. And off course pockets. Because every dress should have pockets. Looking back the fabric was a bit to light weighted to really put something in the pocket. But I don’t think anybody really noticed. And at least I could dance and still have my phone at hand for some pictures.
I also had enough time and fabric left to make a matching bowtie. Willem was a bit skeptical about the color, but I think it really looked nice on him. And people were loving the fact that we matched.
Number of seams I had to redo: 1
After finishing the dress I felt it to be a bit too big around the waist, so I put in the zipper again to make it smaller.
mostly due to the fabric being really sensitive to picking
If I recreate this I will:
make the pockets sit a bit higher to the waistline, and a bit bigger.
