An Early 1920s Hat--Inspiration

A new dress needs a new hat, right? For my early 20s Lanvin dress, I wanted to be sure to have the right style, so for inspiration, I used the absolutely wonderful Illustrated Milliner magazine available on Google Books. It's a trade magazine, and as such, most of the hats in there are very much beyond my ability, but I was able to get a sense of the early 20s look, and figure out what I could do to achieve it.



One style that I was not only drawn to, but seemed possible to copy, was the upturned decorated brim.

I decided that reshaping and covering an existing straw hat would be the easiest thing to do. This is the second hat that I've reshaped, after seeing Jen Thompson reshape her suffragette hat. It's much less involved than actually blocking a hat, and you can make a rather decent hat! The first one I reshaped--for my suffragette dress--is on my journal. And for fun, here's another of Jen's hats, using the same base that I used.



And also, I think I found my dream job--in charge of the Velvet and Ribbon Department? Yes, please!

The next post will show how to go from this:



to this:

The Lily Pad Lanvin Dress

A trip to the Huntington before Costume College? Of course I needed a new dress! A group of friends and I decided to visit in 1920s--a perfect era, as it was wearing a costume and not wearing a costume at the same time. 20s dresses are quite conveniently the size of everyday clothes.

While looking through the Met, I fell in love with this Lanvin dress. I think she may be my favorite 20s designer, as this is the second dress of hers I've made, and I have two more scheduled and even have the materials for those!



I decided on a different color scheme for my dress. I wanted something a little lighter and more summery. I found the perfect shade of green Swiss muslin at Farmhouse Fabrics and I dyed white Swiss muslin cream. Instead of a contrasting color--everything I could think of with the green either seemed too 1970s or too sweet (even for me!)--so I decided to use more green as the accent color. I did use a little pink in the rosette to tie in my pink parasol and custom pink shoes from Step One Dance Shoes.

And that camera I have? It does have pictures on it! Or, I hope. I've been completely horrible and haven't brought the film in to be developed yet.



I'm wearing the dress over a green silk taffeta slip made from the same taffeta that's trimming my hat, my peach silk tap pants, and besides stockings and garters, that's it! I find it very nice having the correct figure for the 20s! I did wonder if I should wear anything else, but a sheer dress with more than one set of straps showing sounded unattractive. I fortunately found this dress in a 1920 Photoplay which clearly shows a sheer dress with nothing but a slip beneath.



I was horrible, and took very few construction pictures as I was making this. In fact, I think I only took one of the neckline and a series of the rosette of doom. I'll describe what I did though. It is straightforward! The bodice is two pieces, a front and back, sewn with French seams on the right side and shoulders. The left side was sewn with a normal seam, a placket with snaps set into it after the skirt was attached and then the remainder of the seam was turned in as a mock French seam. The sleeves were sewn with French seams, and set in with, once again, French seams. So really, the whole dress is sewn twice! The skirt is two rectangles of fabric, and the trim is a straight of grain tube of green fabric with ribbon sewn on top to imitate a tunic. I at first thought there might be a tunic on the original, but the folds of the skirt were too perfectly aligned, so I believe it's just faked with trim. The skirt is sewn on normally, gathered and then right sides to right sides. There are four tiny tucks in the bottom of the bodice, easily visible in the original, which surprisingly do quite a bit of shaping.



For the green around the neck and sleeves, I bound the edges with green bias, then cut a collar piece and extension for the sleeve out of green and basted them in. I really wish I had taken pictures of this! I then sewed cream ribbon over the join. I think this is how the original was done though, and it provided a really nice finish, so I decided to do it even though I was just using one color. The lace insert is simplified on mine. I whipstitched Maline lace from Farmhouse fabrics together for the triangular insert, then sewed ribbon to more Maline lace, gathered it, and sewed it to the neckline.



The rosette, which ended up giving the dress its name, was rather straightforward. Here are my marked pieces for the parts. I sewed the layers together, cut them, turned them right side out, and placed them on the circle base--made of two layers of silk taffeta sewn together and turned right side out--and sewed them down. I think the pictures are rather self-explanatory!



The rosette is then basted to the dress, and can be easily removed if the dress needs to be washed.

For accesories, I have my pink parasol, and a yet to be made post about my early 1920s inspired hat.

For more pictures of the day, including Aubry, Megan, and Sara's lovely dresses, the photoset is here!

Victorian Tennis Dress

I fell in love with this tennis dress at the Met, and decided I needed my own version. And here it is!



I wore it over a chemise, my take on a Ferris Good Sense Corset, drawers, bustle, and petticoat. My shoes are Edwardian lace up boots and I knit my tam o'shanter from an 1885 pattern. The Ravelry page for that is here.



Twila and I wore these in the historic masquerade at Costume Con 30 and won best in show. It was very exciting :)



And what's a bustle dress without a side view?

Victorian Tennis Dress--Construction

I thought that after the spotty dress I wouldn't want to make another dress with a strange side closure/plastron thing, and after the pink and green bustle dress and pleated teens skirt of ages ago, I wouldn't want to make another dress with a full, ironed in, pleated skirt.

Wrong. I fell in love with this striped tennis, seaside, etc. dress at the Met.

The original dress is unlined except for the center back and made of corded cotton. The striped fabric extends past the waist and forms a little peplum of sorts. It now has a purple silk collar that was originally blue. It hooks closed on the left side.

The skirt has a built in bustle and hooks onto the bodice.

Though I was using a lighter weight cotton, I decided to leave mine unlined. I also used purple silk for the collar--in part because I had already bought the silk when I found out, and in part because I liked it so much. I also decided on a separate bustle because I prefer wearing a separate one to a built in bustle, and both are accurate for the era.

On to construction! I took fewer pictures than I should have, but there are so many similarities to the spotty dress. I tend to take fewer pictures when I've done something before.



To pleat the center back, I cut a strip of lining fabric based on the center back of the pattern. I then pleated the striped fabric to it, placed the pattern piece on top, and cut the striped fabric.




After the back was completed, I sewed the side pieces and the side front pieces on. I pinned the shoulders together to fit the darts, and then sewed the front pieces on. The front pieces became the pleated part.



And here we have a fairly large jump in construction. The front panels were pleated, shoulder seams sewn, the collar sewn over all the layers, and plastron sewn in. The waistband was sewn at waist level.



The sleeves were then sewn in, and now, it needed cuffs. Although the original had the cuff bands pointing in different directions, I decided to make mine match.



First, the cuff is bound with a wide bias band.



Then I made bands to put over the join in the cuff.



And the finished--except for the neck bow--bodice!



And for fun, pleating the skirt. I made the skirt portion three times the yoke so it would be easy to pleat. I ended up not using the ruler to do the pleats, but rather following threads to mark each pleat. It ended up being more accurate!

I don't have any pictures of overskirt construction. The front part of the overskirt though, was two trapezoids pleated to fit, and the back is a large rectangle that's pulled up in parts. The front overskirt is sewn directly to the underskirt waistband and the back overskirt is set on its own waistband which is then sewn on one side to the underskirt waistband and then hooks on the other side, covering the center back closure.

And that's the basic construction of this dress!

1925 Bathing Costume

What does it mean when you find a bathing suit pattern (in Women's wear of the 1920s that you think is completely adorable, then you find the original at the Met, a fashion plate featuring the bathing suit and the original patent for the suit?

You make it, of course!



The construction is really quite straightforward. It's made of red wool jersey from Nature's Fabrics. The tunic is two pieces--front and back--worn over a fitted undersuit. The body of the undersuit is also two pieces, with a gusset set into the crotch and shoulder straps. The tunic is embroidered with Appleton crewel wool from my wonderful local embroidery store, Stitcher's Paradise. I used the stretch stitch on my machine for most of the construction. The neck and arms are finished with straight strips (no need for bias!) of fabric sewn first by machine, then hand finished to avoid visible seam lines.



For accessories, I had a paper parasol bought at faire, a black silk taffeta trimmed with green cloche from the D.L. Designs 20s cloche pattern, and Capezio Cobra ballet shoes trimmed with green silk taffeta.





For the ultimate accessory, I had a green and blue bathing cape based on one in the 1921 Delineator. It's a circle cape with a collar and straps that cross the chest to close it. I based the collar construction on an 18c men's cape in Costume Close-Up. It's just a trapezoid on the bias. So easy! Except for the back seam (my fabric wasn't wide enough to cut a half circle without a seam), the cape is sewn by hand. I sort of broke the tensioning screw on my 1917 machine when I was making it (I knew trying to fix the tension was a bad idea!) and the tension on my modern machine is also shot, so I had no choice but to sew by hand. I *really* need to get to the sewing machine repair place!





Though I went in the water with the full suit, to try to go in a little deeper, I took the tunic off. Embroidery, you know! We ended up not going in very deep though, as the waves were a little strong and there was a sudden drop in the water right at our part of the beach.



The before and after pictures of my shoes! They got a little wet and sandy :)



The ties stayed remarkably well once I found where they wanted to be tied. They also got very sandy.



The hat was quite simple and only took a few hours to make. It's not strictly a copy of anything, but rather loosely based on hats I had seen.





And the embroidery!

And for the long story of me making it, likely with many random things thrown in, my Live Journal tag for the suit!

And for pictures of the trip to the beach with my friends' wonderful suits as well, the Flickr set!