Of the textiles Elise gave me, I’ve shown you a very exotic assuit tunic, and a very sweet but commercial wrap.  This week, let’s look at something a bit between the two – a homemade evening gown of gorgeous devore velvet in cobalt blue. The dress is a beautiful, but absolutely typical, example of a middle-class semi-formal dress. This wasn’t a society woman’s frock by any means: it’s the kind of dress made by a home dressmaker from a pattern that almost certainly included a ‘day’ and ‘evening’ version with the only notable difference being the length of the skirt. So, not unusual or exciting in that sense, but actually more exciting because it is such a typical example: it really gives such a perfect picture of what most women were wearing to simple evening events in the second half of the 30s.  And it’s beautiful.  The devore velvet (probably rayon) is just swoon-worthy, and the cut is simple but effective. The dress consists of a bodice joined to a basic bias-cut four-gore skirt at …