Costume College--What I wore!

I don't generally do these, but I thought why not do something new and do a post about what I wore to Costume College? I made three new dresses--the Game of Thrones dress, 1920s tennis dress, and 1920s robe de style. I rewore my Angry Birds dress on Thursday night, and my cotehardie on Sunday.


My Angry Birds dress, with five yards of silk charmeuse lined with three yards of China silk may be the best thing to wear ever. I had thought about a more elaborate dress, but since we were going to the garment district on Thursday, I felt this was for the best! I also loved wearing my Game of Thrones dress. I wore it over my 18th century jump-type-things, which gave a nice fit plus a sort of "period" feel. In the show, they wear 18th century style stays, but I didn't like the way mine looked under the dress, so the jumps it was!


And then the 20s. How much do I love the 20s? So much! The tennis dress was perfect for Saturday. I couldn't imagine not dressing up at Costume College--I just don't have enough events--but an easy costume is nice. I initially worried that it wouldn't feel costumey enough, but once the whole thing was together, it was. And the robe de style might be my favorite gala dress ever. I wish I had thought to get a picture with the sun behind me, because my legs shadowed through very nicely. So scandalous!


And then I finished with the cotehardie. I really just wanted to wear the veil again. And some advice--if you make this type and travel with it, put the dowels in it. It packed perfectly! I had already refreshed it by putting the dowels back in and spraying it with water and baking it. It had flattened a little since the last wear, so I was quite happy I didn't need to completely redo it!

And that was my wardrobe! Next year's plans include the 1890s bicycling sweater and outfit I didn't do this year, a teens evening dress with beetle wing embroidery, another Game of Thrones dress, and...

A 1922 Evening Dress, Based on a Dress from Harper's Bazar

I've wanted this dress ever since I first saw it over two years ago. I'm surprised it took me as long as it did to make it! The inspiration is pictured at the bottom of this post. For my accessories, I'm wearing earrings and bracelets by Taylor of Dames a la Mode, a fan--with a kitty!--from Dengra Designs, shoes from Amazon, and a necklace I made from vintage stones from Etsy, settings from Fire Mountain Gems, and beads and chain from a local bead shop. My tiara is from Seperwar on eBay. I had to

The skirt is hemstitched with the help of Laurie of Cuddle Tyme Hemstitching who was wonderful and actually let me use her antique machine! More can be read about it on my post here.

I took detailed pictures of the construction process, and will post those later!


The dress is made over a foundation bodice of a cotton twill from Farmhouse Fabrics, boned with plastic whalebone from Farthingales, with boning channels made of Italian cotton ribbon from Angela Liguori, silk velvet from NY Fashion Center Fabrics which is lined with cotton organdy from Pure Silks, with edges finished with vintage rayon seam binding, and metallic silk from Pure Silks. I wrote about the flowers and silk thread covered beads here.

The pattern for the foundation is the Lady Maud Warrender 1911 pattern from Patterns of Fashion that I also used for my harem pants bodice.


Now, underneath the dress! I'm wearing stockings from American Duchess, which, while a little later than 20s do a good job of imitating the shiny look seen in many photographs. The smallest size is slightly too big for me, which I think makes them look more twenties! They're held up with garters which are made of crepe de chine and lace over elastic. I've since bought an antique garter which was made differently, which I've yet to copy. I'm wearing it over my silk envelope chemise, fully described here, and hoop, described here.


The dress is a wrap dress. A very elaborate wrap dress. I made up construction based on 1910s ideas, and it ended up working to not close the skirt. So, here it is, held up, and then I'm putting it on. Everything is open!


The skirt is the first thing that gets fastened. It closes with snaps. Next comes the twill underbodice, which closes edge to edge with alternating hooks and eyes. The chemise straps are then fastened into the lingerie guards I wrote about here, so they don't slip out of the narrow shoulder straps.


The flap that you can see hanging open in the pictures above these is essentially a stomacher. It's crinkled metallic silk lined with black silk taffeta. It's sewn to the right side, and then snaps closed on the left side. The velvet bodice then snaps shut over that.


Last, the belt--a tube of the crinkled metallic silk--is snapped on the left side. It's sewn around most of the skirt so it doesn't move. It's only loose from the center front to the side.


And here's the dress laid flat. You can see some of the construction. First, a twill foundation. Over that, a stomacher and back panel of crinkled silk. Then the velvet bodice, joined at the waist and center back, then the skirt sewn to that. Whew!


And my inspiration dress. You can see I've made a few changes. But that's why it's inspriration, right? :)

A 1920s Hoop Skirt--A Mini Tutorial

My last robe de style used pocket hoops. The robe de style I'm making for the Costume College gala this year, however, needs a hoop to support the "dramatic garland of black velvet flowers and silver berries."

My hoop is made of cotton net dyed with iDye from Dharma Trading and boned with hoop boning I bought locally. It's loosely based on this hoop and this hoop, both at the Met, and made with the shape of my skirt in mind. The first hoop was my main inspiration. It appears to be very straightforward and use straight panels, not shaped panels.


To start, I took my roll of boning and held it around my hips to see how wide I wanted my hoop to be. Here I am holding my cut piece of boning around my hips. And that is my dress bodice!

My larger piece of boning ended up being about 64 inches around (measured as finished with the overlap in place), and the smaller piece of boning ended up being about 53 inches around. The tape ties that hold it into an oval shape are about 8 inches long on the top hoop (the smaller one) and 12 inches long on the bottom hoop. I used two widths of netting. I didn't try to make it the same size as the boning, but chose to gather it over the boning instead.

I cut the length of the netting a little longer than I needed so that I could level it.

A Proper 1920s Hem

My hemstitched sample, done by Laurie of Cuddle Tyme Hemstitching.


I first encountered picot edging while making my 1921 Vionnet Dress. The original of that was picot edged, and you can see why. The rounded skirt shape would just float so nicely without the weight of a hem. There was a problem though--to do a proper 1920s picot edge, you first hemstitched with a hemstitch machine, and then cut the hemstitching down the middle. So, I hemmed the dress with a tiny hem which took ages, and didn't give the exact look I wanted. But I still wanted a proper hemstitched picot edge someday.



After a little research, I found there was a hemstitching attachment that you could get for a vintage Singer, like I have, or there's the imitation hand hemstitching that I wrote a tutorial about that's described in the Art of Dressmaking by Butterick, but neither of those would work for the picot edge.

So, how did a woman sewing her own dress in the 1920s get this edge? As described in the Art of Dressmaking, she would take it, and have it done.


And here we have the dress I'm making for this year's Costume College gala. See those petal shaped skirt panels? Not only was I not looking forward to doing tiny hand rolled hems on them (though I actually like making those, even I have limits!), I was afraid that they wouldn't hang exactly the way I wanted. The original of this dress was done in net, which wouldn't need an edge, but my dress is silver and black metallic and silk organza--the same fabric as my gold gala dress.

I wished that I could do a proper hemstitch/picot edge, and I thought, why not look and see if anyone still does this? And that led me to Cuddle Tyme Hemstitching. I emailed, we discussed my project, I sent a swatch, and it's gorgeous! I'm very much looking forward to having a light, period correct, picot edge on my skirt.

And I'm looking forward to not doing all those rolled hems as well :)

Velvet Flowers with Thread Covered Beads--A Tutorial!

A mostly completed flower--it's going to have another string of black beads.

My gala dress for Costume College this year is a 1922 evening dress pictured in Harper's Bazar. The skirt is "strung with a dramatic garland of black velvet flowers and silver berries." Who can resist that description? I've made a small change to the design. On the original, the beads were between the flowers. In my memory, the beads were part of the flower. I decided to do it this way, both because I liked the look, and it's admittedly easier to sew the beads to the flowers! I think I'm going to need about 12 flowers, so 60 silver beads and 120 black beads. You also don't need as many beads sewing them to the flowers, which is quite a nice benefit!