1940/50 evening dress

catch up week. That is catching up with friends, lawn mowing, hedge control, housework, spider patrol and everything else. Also catch up with documenting the last dress made for the costuming course.

This was out of the comfort zone - satin,  draped on the stand, 1949.  Enough of a challenge?

The original - Jacques Fath, Paris, 1949 Autumn/Winter show - a one off, never in production. Sold by Augusta Auctions  in 2006, who thankfully document their stock well and leave the files open as a resource for odd little people like me.   Slim fitting, not tight, loosely draped over the back of the shoulders, dolmanish sleeves, asymmetric  gathered front with waterfall and flounce. Not a lot to ask.

Gwen to the rescue. She is invaluable at moments like this - quick to work on, easy to see all the way round and small enough not to make me guilty about the discarded mistakes. 
Gwen also has about the same proportions!

1. paper - rough shapes and sizes- patching onto the model. Also easy to try out the theories about slice and spread to create that front gather.

2. These initial papers were then cut into pattern shapes and drawn onto fabric. We chose a light jersey knit thinking that would mimic the drape of the crape fabric of the original gown.  This on the straight grain - tried one on the bias and it hung like a rag . One happy Gwen later -     all sans flounce, you'll notice. This took remarkably little time,  should have known better.

3. The little toile was sacrificed to make a paper pattern -  literally drew round each piece..  The centre front  , shoulders (front and back) and sleeves became one piece, the lower back was in shaped panels, and there were two front side pieces. The neck line was that very technical thing called a hole. 

sorry, upside down. This was the central piece.

far too Mrs Beckham for 1950

4. Once the shapes were smoothed  and  evened out they were scaled up to fit a full size mannequin - the closest, with padding, that we had to me.  This was fairly simple -  marking up the dummy in the same way, making sure the important things were in the same places.  The first fit was promising , so  the flounce was added. The weight  of this caused problems - it became 'body con' = tarty tight, and the gather lost its shape. The grey fabric ran out  so we had substituted a thicker green crape-ish thing. Oops- just couldn't get them to work together right so had to recut all the grey in green.

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5. Getting the shapes wasn't hard compared to getting it to fit on me. I am not symmetrical so it wouldn't hang straight, I do not have that long graceful curve to the waist (any more), and am more top heavy than hip heavy unlike the original.   Big ummm.    It was round about here that it would no longer fit the mannequin no matter what padding was used! ( mannequins have no squidge  or bendy bits)
 The main problem was that as soon as I put the thing on it became guess work - I couldn't see it from anywhere except the one angle so had little idea of what was happening to the side or back and how the whole was working together when I moved. Bit of a problem in a garment.

On a smaller dummy -The back hangs straight on me!

Frustrating rounds of trial and error ensued. Very frustrating. Very, very frustrating. I became even more stubborn than normal, all this effort meant there had to be results, or why bother in the first place? Pah.

6. Making up in satin. The green had given as much  as it could so decided to go ahead in the final fabric, a cotton backed satin, again of uncertain parentage, left over from a previous year's course. This was relatively straight forward - the satin had enough weight to be a gentleman- and the fabric was just about wide enough to reach from wrist to wrist!  6 1/2 metres later it was assembly time. Fastening was under the left arm, a placket in the seam with hook and bar and press studs. To try to support the weight of the flounce a petersham waistband was sewn inside,

just catching inside the key seams.  The flounces were the mammoth task - the hemming. The satin would not run through the rolled hem foot  on any of the machines so it had to be done all by me as a baby hem - stitch a tiny fold as close to the edge as possible, then fold it under and stitch again.  Those flounces were giant polos of fabric - 120" on the internal circumference. By the time I'd stitched round twice the estimate for the external measurement was done in miles. Cup of tea and damp flannel required. And then to hem the waterfall. This sits into the seam below the gather and hangs down the front skirt so had to be accurate. More tea. and tidily finished. cake.
Binding the cuffs and neckline was light relief in comparison.

Bit of glam from Pauline the glitter fairy and it was done.

OK, not the same as the original but a version of.  If done in lighter fabric  it would have a very different character  but this type of satin was an unknown thing for me to work with so wanted to try it. Bit of an error there I think - I had also joked about making it in tweed just to see what would happen......... May be minus the gather and skirt could make an interesting jacket .......... ummm indeed.