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Rate the Dress: 1950s does Japonisme

Published by The Dreamstress

Oh dear, oh dear.  We were having such a good run with Rate the Dress, and then last week the grey & peach 1860s dress disappointed so many of you.  There were some that still loved it, to be fair, but not enough to raise the rating above a 5.9 out of 10 (and if I had accepted Sineuve’s ‘-8’ rating it would have been even lower!)

Let’s see if this week’s dress can bring back the wins?

My selection brings together all the things I have been blogging about in the last few days: early 50s, mid-50s, summertime, & Japan, all in one perky party frock. Caroline Schnurer’s ‘Rice Bowl Dress‘ uses Japanese paper tie-dye designs on cotton, a backwards kimono-collar, and a very innovative parasol-inspired pleated skirt supported by vertical bones.

"The Rice Bowl Dress", Carolyn Schnurer , Textile manufacturer- ABC Fabrics, 1952, American, cotton, Metropolitan Museum of Art

What do you think?  Is all that green fresh and summer-y?  Does the pairing of classic style with some very innovative construction work, or is the whole boned-skirt thing just a bit too odd?  And what would you think of the dress if you didn’t know how it was constructed?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

The little black dress-clips dress

Published by The Dreamstress

One of my sewing goals for this year is to make time to sew more for me.  It’s a bit embarrassing to be a professional seamstress who never wears anything she makes!

This goal is being helped by my newest obession: The Sew Weekly.  Every week they set a challenge/theme, you complete it, and then get to post photos of it and brag about it.  I love the inspiration of the theme – it helps me to sew in new directions.  And I love their little wrap-up of the project (see my version at the end of this post) And the brag opportunities don’t hurt either 😉

This week’s theme was accessorize: sew a garment to go with an accessory you already own.  It was the perfect theme for me.  Mr Dreamy gave me the most gorgeous vintage marcasite dress clips for our anniversary, and I’ve been planning to make a dress to wear them with ever since.  And I don’t really have a little-black-dress, so I got to kill two birds with one stone.

Aren’t they exquisite?  They also clip on to a brooch back, so that you can wear them as one piece.

Anyway, without further ado, here is my little black dress-clips dress:

Just the facts, Ma’am:

Fabric:  1.3 metres of thrifted black wool crepe.

Pattern: Self drafted, based on Grandma’s blue dress, which I am sure was made from an actual sewing pattern.

Pattern alterations:  The original dress also had two zips, one at the side and a little one at the back neck.  While I’m not an anti-zip seamstress, I’m also not a glutton for punishment.  So I switched out the back-neck zip for a button and loop.  Much more elegant anyway.  I also lowered the front neckline a bit to showcase the dress clips.   The only unintentional alteration is that my draft of the pattern ended up too short in the bodice, so I added a waist-band.  Unfortunately that meant that I didn’t have enough fabric left to do a belt, so I’m wearing with a piece of vintage ribbon for a sash.

Year: ca. 1956 (I wondered about the date of Grandma’s dress, but now that I have drafted it and sewn it up the construction details suddenly make a mid-50s date really clear)

Notions:  a side zip recycled from another garment, an orphan vintage black jet button from Grandma’s button stash, turquoise hem facing and ocean blue bias binding from my stash (either thrifted or inherited from Nana or Grandma).

Hours:  2.5 hours to draft the pattern off of Grandma’s blue dress, 5 hours sewing (hey, I hand stitched the zip and the facing!).

Techniques used:  Pattern drafting, side zip, faced hems, blind-hem stitching, pick-stitched zip.

Will you make this again?  YES!  I love it!  I’m going to make this over and over and over again, starting with a wear on Tue to the opening of Lonely Hearts.  I want one in every colour (OK, not quite, but a few prints might be nice).  It also is the perfect background for my Not-So-Secret-Garden necklace by Things Unseen.

Any changes?  I think I’ll make two not-quite-bows similar to the ones the original blue dress has on one side to go under the dress clips when I wear the dress with them.  Right now it’s a bit plain, and not really making the clips ‘pop’ in the way I want them to.  And I’m going to alter the pattern so that I don’t have to do a waistband

Total cost:  Not sure, but under $5 – the fabric was thrifted and the zip was recycled from another garment.  I guess the cost goes up by a scarily extravagant amount a bit if you count the dress clips too.

And the inside?:  Overlocked finished seams, bias faced hem and sleeve hems, roll-hemmed neck facing which is hand bound. I think the pictures of the dress turned inside-out say it all (including “it’s really hard to photograph black fabric with bright blue trim and get any details”):

Do you love the bright turquoise hem & sleeve facings and belt-finish?  I do!  Even if it is a little black dress I thought the inside should have a bit of fun.

The sewn-down neck facing (wool crepe is so perfect for hiding prick-stitches!)

The back button detail:

 

Isabella has a companion!

Published by The Dreamstress

Remember Isabella my dressform?

I’ve just bought her a companion.  Meet Lady Murasaki:

Lady Murasaki

Murasaki is a vintage Japanese dressform.  She’s a size 8 (so one size down from Isabella).  She’s also slightly longer – so suitable for draping garments that are fitted over the hips.  Doesn’t she have beautiful lines?

She is foam (great for pinning and draping on) with a synthetic taffeta cover which has a bit of foxing from age.  Right now I like the evidence of what she has been through; if it gets too bad I’ll re-cover her.

Wearing her age

I found her at the Asia Gallery.  I’d actually noticed her months ago, but I didn’t have the money for her at the time, and the price was a bit more than I wanted to pay.  I also wondered if I really would get much use out of such a small dressform.  However, my last three clients have been size 8 or smaller, and I find it easier to draft on a small form and size up than to draft patterns and size them down.  The real clincher was the price though: I went by the Asia Gallery on Friday and she was marked down.  Dressform for $80 = major happy dance!

Isabella and Murasaki

I knew almost immediately what I wanted to name her.  Isabella is named after the Italian Renaissance arts patron Isabella d’Este, and most of my other sewing equipment also have names related to Renaissance art, but that didn’t suit Murasaki.  Instead I named her after the 11th century Japanese poet and writer Murasaki Shikubu, author of The Tale of Genjii.

The slightly different shapes are fascinating.

My interest in Murasaki goes back even further than my interest in Renaissance art patrons.  I read a book about her as a early teen, and continued to read up on her and The Tale of Genji.  I drove my Japanese language teacher in high school batty by knowing (and using) all sorts of obscure Japanese nouns (starting with her name, murasaki, which means ‘wisteria’ and also the purple colour of wisteia) but being hopeless at grammar.

I don’t immediately have an excuse to use her, but I’m very excited about doing so: she has the perfect seams for draping – so much better than Isabella’s.