vogue 1435 – The G. G. Files

Finding the perfect summer dress: a wild-goose chase?

Posted on July 8, 2021 by ggherself

It’s almost the middle of July, and in my little corner of the world, it’s high summer. At least it usually is. The past week has been cool and drizzly except for the few days of scorching heat. It’s this scorching heat that we typically get this time of year―day after day. So, over the past few years since we moved from the cool-summer Atlantic coast where I always needed a sweater or light jacket close by, I’ve had to adapt my wardrobe to deal with more consistent heat. I’ve found myself searching for perfect summer dresses that I can wear during the day in an urban, big-city place. When you consider my personal aesthetic, that’s no easy task.

Let’s just look at the dresses being touted as the best dresses of the season for this summer in the northern hemisphere.

When I did a Pinterest search, this is the representation of what I found.

Then, that arbiter of all things fashion, Vogue magazine, offers the following monstrosities (sorry if you like them, but they just make me gag).

Then, horrors of all horrors are these gems that Vogue considers appropriate attire for grown women in 2021.

As an aside: These styles got me thinking about Dr. Jean Kilbourne, an American professor who has spent years researching how women are depicted in advertising and how infantilization is a problem (all ads created by men). Well, I won’t go all professorial on you, but I cannot imagine choosing to look infantile. If you haven’t seen her video lectures Killing Us Softly, I highly recommend them. They’re a real eye-opener. As cool as thee dresses might be (and by cool, I don’t mean cool), they send out a message of the little girl who at best needs to be protected (from something, I’m not sure what) or, at worst, is as dumb as a bag of hammers. *sigh* Rant over.

Perhaps I can just be polite and say that they are simply not my style. So, where does that put someone whose personal style is more streamlined and tailored? Well, thank you for asking. It puts me (and maybe you) right there in front of your sewing machine. Thank goodness for our sewing skills!

Over the past few years, I’ve searched for styles and fabrics that represent who I am and have come up with several approaches that work for me. And maybe they’ll work for you.

I started with a little black dress that’s not appropriate for daytime wear (and isn’t cool enough anyway, given that it’s lined!), but it’s a style I can work with.

Then, I designed a shirt-style dress for a cruise that works well for summer in the city. I selected seersucker for it for obvious reasons―it’s light and cool. And, if you’ve ever read anything on my blog before, you know I’m not a print fan (*gags slightly*), but I can do a stripe. It’s my kind of print.

Remember the QR code dress from a month or so ago? It’s a style I’ll certainly make again but in a different fabric. And, no, I haven’t worn it yet. ☹

Finally, my current project. I’m drawn to dresses that are just a bit more than bags, even for hot summer days. So, a simple T-shirt dress with a half-belt tie immediately appealed to me. I bought some striped ottoman fabric (my print!) and embarked on this one, New Look 6650.

I’m not a fan of midi dresses these days. I guess it’s because I lived through it the first time around, and I don’t see the point of a longer dress in the summer. Probably even more important, though, is that I still have good legs and find the hemline just above the knees to be more flattering for me (and for most other women, in my view.) But I do like those short sleeves rather than the elbow-length ones. I also made the hem deeper since that tends to make a light dress hang better.

The fabric is a bit heavier and a bit less stretchy than the pattern is created for (it’s made for drapey jersey), so I cut it just a tad bigger.

I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet (remember the cool drizzle I mentioned earlier), but I will. My husband and I are headed out of the city for the first time in almost a year to a country inn and spa next week. I think I might just take it with me. It might be just the thing for dinner on the patio!

My LBD* Project Continues: Considering option #3 (the last contender?)

Posted on March 26, 2018 by ggherself

And so I’m on to the final – or so I think at this point – contender to become my ultimate Little Black Dress* (LBD).

Contender #1, based on McCall’s pattern 6464 has lots of seam detail for fitting well and a plethora of sleeve options, although I’m focused on the ¾ length ones.

Contender #2, based on Butterick pattern 6410 also has lots of seaming detail (although less than the McCall’s) for fit – and it fits better than the McCall’s. This option has cuffed, short sleeves and a yoke which provides a bit of interest, although in unbleached cotton muslin, it resembles nothing less than a house dress. With these toiles, I have to squint at them to try to envision them in what might be the finished fabrication. Which brings me to the final (at least I think it’s the final) contender.

Then third dress might be closest to what we used to think was a LBD. It is a simple sleeveless sheath with princess seaming, a scoop neck and a front side slit. I was drawn to the Vogue 1435 pattern the minute I saw it.

Vogue 1435

I have to be honest and say that I really knew little about them before I began looking more closely at the sewing patterns they design for Vogue patterns. They are a married couple who met while attending design school at the Pratt Institute in New York and have been around for 20 or 30 years. What I like about their philosophy which is manifested in their designs is their mantra that last season’s collection should never be obsolete, rather that “great clothes last forever.” Here are some of their current offerings:

Well, I’m not sure about forever – it’s a very long time – but I agree that fast fashion is not the way for me to go, and probably never was.

Anyway, it wasn’t difficult to get this design to fit me, then as I spent some quality time staring at the muslin, the simple little dress seemed to grow on me. I even considered the matching jacket, but to tell you the truth, it’s a bit too voluminous. Anyway, back to the dress.

As I stood gazing at Gloria junior in all her muslin designer glory, my husband came up and examined it, as he likes to do when I’m working on a project.

“I like the last one better,” he said.

Naturally, I asked him why – and keep in mind this is a man with a great sense of style. He often shops with me and spends the time while I’m in the dressing room searching through the racks to find pieces he thinks I might like and might suit me. He is most often right on the money.

“I think that the perfect little black dress has sleeves. It makes it more elegant.”

Elegant? I want elegant. I want sophisticated. And I want timeless. I took another look at the dress and thought, you know he’s right.

In that moment, I realized the reason I was contemplating the jacket was that I knew that more often than not, I would be looking for a shrug, a wrap or a jacket to complement this dress. So, I took another look at contender #2. Then my husband, who was still considering the designs said, “What about those dresses with those nice style lines Merissa wears on Bull? That would suit you.”

Merissa is a character on the television show Bull and every week when we watch it we marvel over her dresses – which, it has to be said, she wears well. I think she could wear a garbage bag and look professional and – elegant.

So, just when I thought I had a winner – contender #2, Butterick 6410 – I know in my heart I have to go back to the drawing board (literally) and design an original. I guess I better prep some more muslin fabric. I’m going to need it.

FYI: The Pratt Institute https://www.pratt.edu/

The Tom & Linda Platt photos are from their web site: www.tomandlindaplatt.com

Couture Sewing, Little Black Dress

My LBD* Project: Considering option number one

Posted on February 20, 2018 by ggherself

And so, the real work begins. I decide on three contenders for my *Little Black Dress project and get to work. Here are the three contenders:

McCall’s 6464 has myriad sleeve options.

Butterick 6410 looks a bit “day” to me, but I think it has possibilities — an I like the short sleeves.

Vogue 1435 looks like a very classic LBD contender to me. Simple, but could be dramatic in the right fabric. Not so sure about that jacket. We’ll see.

What I like about all of them is that they have a variety of style lines that provide me with the ability to fine-tune the fit – and if you’ve been reading any of my posts for the past while, you’ll know that one of my most passionate goals is to have well-fitting clothes. But this good fit does have to be tempered with comfort: in my view, life is too short to wear uncomfortable or frumpy clothes!

sk couture dress class I begin with McCall’s 6464. My first step, as always, is tissue fitting and making a few adjustments to the pattern at this initial stage. I will use my newly acquired knowledge of couture dress-making techniques for this project. I put Susan Khalje’s “Couture Dress Course” from Craftsy in my ears and mark all the seam lines on the tissue pattern. I then cut it out roughly because I’ll be marking seam lines and using those rather than using seam allowances.

First, I have to bring out the massive sheets of waxed tracing paper and mark everything on the muslin pieces.

Of course, that’s only half of the marking I need: since this marks on only one side of the fabric, I’ll need to have those seam lines, darts etc on both sides, so I use the sewing machine to thread trace everything. Time-consuming, but it should be worth it to get the fit right. I like that fact that this pattern gives me options regarding the sleeves. I haven’t decided yet if I want sleeves, but I am leaning toward that.

When I sew up the toile, there are quite a few tweaks needed to get that fit just right. [Just a sidebar: I always pop in a zipper so that I can fit myself, although my husband will willingly pin in back issues for me.]

I realize that I’m going to need to do two or even three toiles to get it just right. One of the things that surprises me about this pattern is that for the sleeveless version, it provides the same armhole as for the sleeve variations. This means that I would have to take a dart in the armhole and transfer that to the bust dart or princess seam if I decide to use this one and I find that I want a sleeveless LBD. An armscye for a sleeve will gape on me (as on most people, I’d wager) if used in a sleeveless version.

I make it up as designed in the original pattern and take a look at it. Do I like the style? The lines? The fit? As I look at it closely, I realize that I might not be so fond of those darts. In fact, to my eye, there is something about the style lines of the skirt that seem to scream for a princess seam in the upper bodice. I do up a few sketches and like what I’m seeing.

On the right is the dress as designed in the original pattern. On the left, my changes.

So, a trace off the pattern, transfer the darts into a princess seam and replace the bodice with my new one and the tweaked skirt. After a few false starts, I get the fit just right. I’m beginning to be able to see this in black silk—maybe raw silk, maybe satin-backed crepe silk (or crepe-backed satin depending on how I look at it). I can almost feel the silk charmeuse lining that I might use.

As it turned out, I didn’t manipulate the skirt darts into one line: it changed the fit too much, so I removed only the darts in the bodice, turning them into a princess line which I then had to fit better as you can see: the right side is still pinned in this last version.

So, as I said, it now fits really well, and I’m liking the 3/4 sleeves better than the sleeveless version. Anyway, I feel I like this one, but is it too matronly? Well, on to the next one.

Next up, the test of Butterick 6410.

FYI…Here are some photos of the large sheets of waxed tracing paper in action in a previous project…