1920s Pink and Gold Satin Dress

For Costume Con, I decided I wanted to wear 1920s on Saturday. In part, at least, because my tennis dress took up a suitcase of its own. I had a dilemma though--I wanted to wear a tiara on Saturday night, and neither of my evening style dresses worked with a tiara! So, with 11 days to go and a corset yet to make, I found Ida Frances Pobliner Parker's wedding dress at the Center for Jewish History. I'd directly link, but the links just expire.

I had stash fabric--meant for a pink Tudor dress, which is very fortunate as I cut the overskirt out upside down--and patterns so similar I wouldn't really need to do any fitting, so went for it.



The dress is fairly straightforward. The most interesting part of the construction is the waist. On the right side, there's an extension of the bodice that wraps around the back. It took quite a bit of staring to figure out what was going on there, since there wasn't a good side view of the dress. It was obvious that the waist decoration didn't end on the side, but not instantly obvious why!



It's a very good thing the fabric had been bought for a Tudor dress! The overskirt is huge!

It's really quite simple. Except for the waist extension, it's a sheath dress. The overskirt is sewn on over that, and then the waist extension and decoration hides the overskirt join.

The flowers are made with the opposite side of the fabric, and how I made them will be the subject of another post.



And some side views without arms in the way!







Construction, showing the overskirt, side extension, and four little tucks I made under the waist decoration to bring it in in back a bit. It initially hung more like a 1960s dress. Oops :)

The waist extension was gathered on the bottom edge, drawn to fit, and sewn right sides together. The top edge was gathered over a cord and then sewn wrong side to right side.