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The Fine Feathered Friends Dress

Two weeks ago I posted about the 0Degrees of Sewing Separation challenge, and now it’s time to finally show you my make!

(well, one of my makes…I’m doing at least two, and maybe as many as 4….!)

This is definitely make #2, because it’s not the one you’ve already seen a sneak preview of.  It is, in fact, the one that started it all:

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This is  the Decades of Style Dorothy Lara dress  from the vintage feathered rayon that both    Juliet  of Crazy Gypsy Chronicles  and I bought a piece of at Fabric-a-Brac in Palmy.

Does that mean that Juliet made something in it?  Why yes, she did!  And shortly you’ll be able to read her blog post about it too! (and you even get a photo of us together in our garments, thanks to the ‘ask a random stranger to photograph you’ technique)

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Juliet wasn’t able to make the 0Degrees get together, so the two of us decided that we needed to meet to  take photos.  I took a break from pattern drafting and class planning, and she took a break from being an awesome museum person, and we  managed a quick photoshoot  at Parliament.

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It’s really quite amazing and wonderful that you can just wander around the parliament grounds, and that they are full of office workers sitting on the lawns and benches having lunch, and school kids climbing the pohutakawa trees.  It’s a good reminder that it wasn’t that long ago that the Prime Minister of NZ had his personal phone number listed in the phone book for anyone to look up!

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This is iteration #3 of the Decades of Style Dorothy Lara dress, and I feel I’ve finally got the fit just right.  I cut a 36″ skirt and waistband, and a 34″ bodice, and take in the angled raglan sleeves 1cm at the bottom and 1.5cm at the top, to compensate for my narrow upper back and shoulders.

Now that I have the fit right, I really love the dress, though the process of making it is still:

“AAAAGGGHHHhhhh!  I hate this so much!  This is so finicky and tedious and annoying!  It goes on forever!  Why am I doing this!  Oh…wait…I’m almost done.  Well, that last bit was fast!”

And then I try it on, and suddenly I’m in love all over again!

I hope Nina, who is the link before me in the 0Degrees chain, with a Dorothy Lara in white spotted sateen, likes hers as much!

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I did have a tiny last-minute upset with this dress.  I was putting it on to get dressed to take photos, and the invisible side zip broke!  Total panic, frantic unpicking, a mad search through my zip stash, and I managed to find a suitable zip and install it in time!  Whew!

I’m a little gutted though, as I was planning to replace the zip with a proper 1940s lapped fastening when I had time, and I’m not sure I can face unpicking another zip – nor am I sure the fabric can handle it.

I’ve paired the dress with a leather belt, a rust coloured silk and viscose cardigan (my new favourite not-me-made garment, for those days in winter when my skin is throwing hissy fits about having to wear wool, again), and NW3 Hobbs ’30s inspired shoes (mostly because I was in a mad hurry and they were the first brown shoes I located).

I really like the Dorothy Lara with a belt, and it sits very comfortably.

And I really love the whole look, because it does feel very  1940s.

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(a moment of appreciation for what a wiz with the camera Juliet is!  Even the NZ flag is perfect in that photo!)

The 1940s look is quite appropriate, because this isn’t just a qualifier for 0Degrees.  This also fits nicely into the HSF ‘War & Peace’ challenge, as the perfect example of a wartime frock using a fabric that was more widely available  (rayon), in a small, allover, non-directional print, perfect for conserving fabric.  The pattern is also a classic wartime pattern – giving the impression of lush fabric usage, while actually being quite frugal.  I’ve even gone for a teeny-tiny hem, to really conserve fabric.

And because it’s a wartime frock, we got some photos at the Parliament war memorial, with the cenotaph and lions:

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The Challenge:  #4  War & Peace

Fabric:  3m (more or less, I forgot to measure exactly) of vintage feather patterned rayon – from the hand and width, it’s probably original 1940s fabric, picked up at Palmerston North’s Fabric-a-Brac.

Pattern:  Decades of Style #4013 Dorothy Lara dress

Year:  1943

Notions:  thread,  an invisible zip, silk organza to interface.

How historically accurate is it?:  Other than the invisible zip, the pattern, materials, and sewing techniques are all accurate to the early-mid 1940s.

Hours to complete:  7 or so —  I started, and then didn’t do anything for two weeks, and then got back to it

First worn:  Wed April 29, for the photoshoot.

Total cost:   About  $10  — the fabric I picked up for $6, and there is still enough of it left for a blouse, plus two $3 zips, a 50cent spool of vintage thread, and scraps of silk organza from a meter length I found in the Fabric Warehouse $5 bin (I LOVE that bin!)

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Rate the dress: Green in 1865

Draped and layered 1910s dresses just aren’t doing it for you are they?  First the blue chiffon and lace frock was compared to curtains and kids dress-ups, and then last week’s pale paisley 1910s frock was given the exact same criticism (only this time you said tablecloths) by some.  And quite a few of you thought it was nice but meh.  But some of you thought it was fabulous, so it did score enough 10/10 to bring it up to a respectable 8.2 out of 10 – which is pretty much exactly what I’d give the dress!.

I’ve been doing a bit of research into 1860s fashions as a potential project for my HSF Heirlooms &  Heritage challenge (not exactly a hint, because I’ve also discovered that thanks to some amazing family genealogy work I can trace a direct line of ancestors all the way back to Baldwin of Flanders in the 9th c (and, through Judith, all the way back to Charlemagne) so maybe I’ll get excited and do something early Medieval – or anywhere in between, because a lot is known about all the Sirs and Esquires that happened before you finally get a younger son who emigrates to America 800 years later), and I can across this dress.

And I think it’s fascinating:

The fabric is apparently a warp-printed moire silk taffeta, and the dress is a perfect example of the transition from the full crinoline silhouette, to the back-emphasis bustle silhouette.

Transitional styles are quite interesting: they can either be incredibly successful, combining elements of the more classic periods to create something unusual and unexpected, or they can be an awkward melding of disparate aesthetics.

How do you feel about this transitional gown?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

Going on a Gorilla Hunt

I love Art Deco Weekend in Napier, but I love it for the chance to dress up, and because I know so many fabulous people who go.

I’m not actually that keen on most of the official  events of the weekend: generally  they involve crowds, being really hot, and announcers who say things like “When this building was new it was the Roaring ’20s and all of Napier was dancing to the Charleston” while I mutter things like “Oh, for Pete’s sake!  When this  building was new it was 1932, because there was this little earthquake thing in 1931 that levelled Napier, causing it to be rebuilt in Art Deco Style which is y’know, the whole reason we have this weekend – supposedly.  And ’32 is Great Depression, because the fall of ’29 put paid to the Roaring ’20s pretty effectively, all over the world.  Seriously, you’ve only been announcing this for what, 11 years?  Learn something!”

Yes,  under my cap of dark gold waves  and cheery smile hides the soul of a curmudgeon.  One who talks (well, mutter) in run-on sentences.  And may not say Pete.

So, not so big on the official  events.

But the un-official events?  The un-official events are amazing.  Just watching the show go by.     Kids dressed up in period clothes just running around and being kids, not knowing that they are supposed to act a certain way, and looking far more authentic for it.  People who just really get into the spirit of it, and create their own street theatre.  The swing dancers setting up their own music and creating dances on the street corners.

And the most awesome of all the un-official events is the gorilla hunt.  Every year some of the dance people, just for the heck of it, and of their own initiative, rent a gorilla costume, and dress up in safari gear, and the Great White Hunters (tongue very firmly in cheek)  hunt the gorilla through the crowds.  There are Tarzan moments, and King Kong moments, and slapstick moments, and it is hilarious, and fabulous, and most un-official and definitely the best thing to happen all weekend!

And this year I got to participate – oh, the joy!

My safari outfit was very thrown together – I found out I was participating less than 10 minutes before I got in the car to go to Napier.  So in a great rush I grabbed my pith helmet from the back of the closet (what do you mean?  Don’t you have a pith helmet sitting in the back of your closet, just in case you need to go on safari at last minute?) and shoved my Goldilocks blouse in my bag (it’s got green on it, close enough for a safari) and added a greenish-brown  belt.

Not bad for last minute:

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The deal with the hunt is that the ‘Great White Hunters’ are 1), very, very, dumb (VERY), and 2) very, very British (VERY).

We say “Oh, I say” a lot.  And “Splendid!”  And “Jolly Good Shot Old Chap” (I do an excellent terrifically over the top grand dame accent)

The gorilla, for the record, is not dumb at all.

Because I didn’t have a ‘gun’ I acted as a beater.  With a parasol.  And a handbag.  Because, of course.

First, the Great White Hunters survey the jungle, looking for signs of their prey:

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Over there!

Art Deco Gorilla Hunt thedreamstress.com3(the hunter pointing in a different direction was the not-British and not-nearly-so-dumb member of our group.  When our roles were explained he inadvertently created an actual dumb-British-Great-White-Hunter moment.  “This is Jack.  He’s going to be smart and tell us where the gorilla is, but we’re going to pretend we can’t understand him because of his French accent.”  “Oh, can you do a good fake French accent”  “Errrr….no?”  “Then why are you playing the role, man!?!”  “Because I’m French”  “………………….oh, Jacques!”)

With a bit of assistance, we finally manage to catch the gorilla:

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And convey it home, to the adulation of the natives, in their picturesque costumes of fringed dresses and feather boas.

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But Oh NO!  What’s this?  It’s escaped!

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We must catch it before it goes on rampage!

(or whatever it is gorillas do.  The hunters were a little vague on the finer points of gorilla etiquette.  And gorilla everything.  We may have though it had tentacles.)

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We inquired if the natives had seen any sign of a gorilla:

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No gorilla here!

We looked high and low for it, to no avail:

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We stopped to watch a festival of the peculiar native dancing, with all odd moves, like swing-outs and sugar pushes, but didn’t see a gorilla:

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We searched, and searched, travelling through the jungle, and across the savannah:

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We even stumbled across the film set for Tarzan, and asked the director, but he hadn’t seen a gorilla…

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All the while we were hampered by the foreign hunter in our group, who kept babbling on in some peculiar tongue (we think it was Scottish) and saying ‘oooh!’ (think about it) all the time and demanding water.  I have no idea why he was so thirsty….

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Finally he got frustrated and started threatening to leave and telling us au revoir, or something that sounds like that.

And why was he going on about water?

It’s not like we would find the gorilla at the watering hole (look it up in French) or anything…

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