1920s Revival

With the big Flapper's Ball just around the corner, I have completed the silk charmuese '20s gown and have hastily moved on to a simpler one for myself. But despite the fact that it seems like I am in a constant hurry these days (again, I accuse the new house), I'd like to follow up on that first gown.

The last pictures I posted just showed six yards of fabric stretched out across my dining room floor. Well, somehow I did make it past that step and assembled the majority of the gown. The styles of the 1920s frequently depended on the quality of the fabric and ornamentation of the gown more than they did fancy cutting and piecing so the process took surprisingly little time.

As expected, my major time investments were in ironing out the rolled hem for the curvaceous edge of the flounces. I was ready to burn that silk charmuese! It was a battle the whole way around.

But the result was pretty and a little surprising. As I expected, during the first fitting, the flounces flowed like water every time the client took a step. I even forgave the silk for giving me such a hard time earlier.

I didn't photograph the fitting (to avoid making my dear friend uncomfortable), but I did snap a picture of it where it hung in my living room for a week while I built up the courage to attach the top flounce.

The armhole binding wasn't stitched down quite yet for this if you're wondering what is the deal with the shoulders.

The flounce took some courage and some thinking, but I finally laid the dress out on my dining room floor (I may actually regret it when I have to give up that precious floor space for a dining room table) and used a piece of marked cardboard as a ruler to get the height even all around. Then I nervously basted it together and hung it up to do a visual check before doing the permanent machine stitching.

There is no photograph of this dress finished yet because I was too excited to hand it over. Nevertheless, you can be sure that I will photograph the hell out of this dress once I am at the ball.



With just three weeks remaining to make something for myself, I also bought this pattern drafting book from an eBay store. It's a 1920s "pattern drafting system" that promised to take about an hour.

They had a fetish for this kind of machine-like efficiency in the early 20th century, and at only $14.95, I kept my expectations low.

However, I was pleased to find it effective, fast, and fairly flattering. It would have been much faster to make, but of course I couldn't just do it the easy way. I had to add tucks and then mess with the pleating on the hips. And now I am beading the damn thing (fool!). I'll post the story of this dress another day.