All posts tagged: 1930s

The Frumpy Dress gets a proper outing

I made the Frumpy Dress well over two years now, and I wear it all the time, and I’ve never really gotten proper pictures of me wearing it. But Yay for Art Deco Weekend! The perfect excuse for an early 30s dress. My only regret is that I didn’t wear it with bright red lipstick. It’s so pretty with bright red lipstick. Instead, I wore it with my Neo oxford pumps, my marcasite and cameo necklace, and a vintage tan leather handbag which I found in an op-shop three days before the Art Deco festival, and was ridiculously delighted with because I think matching shoes and bag is so important for the vintage look. I started out the day in a little blue hat that I bought from Claire (and which she immediately borrowed back to wear with her dress!), and finished it with a big grey blue and cream sunhat (perfect for the dress, very late 20s/early 30s, but dreadful for photographs and seeing where you are going!).

A Little Bit of Red dress

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I blogged about all the stuff I wanted to get finished for Art Deco Weekend. I didn’t get everything I wanted done, and that wasn’t all a bad thing – it turns out that evening gowns aren’t really a great idea for street dancing in sweaty heat (actually, street dancing and sweaty heat aren’t a good idea either, alone or together). One thing I did finish was my floral chiffon 1930s dress. It’s made from Excella E3137, one of my vintage patterns. I made it up without the hip ruffles, because really, hip ruffles? I’ll do a proper review of the pattern in a bit, once I finish the dress properly. I mean, it’s finished properly (rolled hems, French seams & double sewn seams), but I’m not happy with it. Somehow it just looks uninteresting. Somehow I failed to notice that except for those hip ruffles it’s just a sack with quirky seaming. And the quirky seaming doesn’t even show with the print! Maybe it needs those hip ruffles after all! So I’m …

Elise’s gift: the leaf green velvet jacket

Published by The Dreamstress

Silk and rayon velvets were very popular in 1930s fashion, particularly for evening wear. Last week I showed you a devore velvet gown in royal blue (the most fashionable colour for velvet). This week Elise’s gift is another velvet item, but in a much more unusual colour. Isn’t the colour scrumptious? Silk velvet in that colour is top of my fabric wish-list at the moment. The jacket is a lovely example of the Renaissance influence on 1930s fashion. You can see it in the puffed upper sleeves, and in the padded, sculptural collar. The sleeve puffs are controlled and structured over the shoulders with rows of gathering stitches. The controlled gathers at the top of the sleeve turn into soft, unstructured gathers at the bottom of the poof, so it droops gracefully over the slim lower sleeve. Lines of gathering stitches also keep the ruching of the puffed collar As you may have guessed from the elaborate and clever cutting and shaping of the jacket, this garment, unlike the blue devore dress, probably isn’t a …