A 1940s Dress

This is another dress I finished quite a while ago (in the fall of 2010, in fact) and never got decent pictures of.  These still aren't great - the self-photography idea didn't work quite as well this week as it did last time! - but they're better than nothing!

It's hard to believe that a week ago I was cavorting about in a thin silk dress and a light cotton sweater.  Today it was just above freezing and I was glad of my wool coat and the cowl and the stockings and the gloves!

I made this dress as a costume for a play at Union back in my senior year.  It wasn't actually made for me, but the girl who wore it (my best friend) and I manage to share clothes despite being built totally differently, so at the end of the play I got to keep it.  All I had to do was let the sleeve hems down.

I did iron it this morning.  But then I sat on it during church.  Sigh.

The pattern is a repro from 1946.  (Can't find the pattern online now to link to it...)  I made it up in a 100% wool suiting fabric with a really nice drape.  I remember it being a little fiddly to put together - all the asymmetrical pieces - but it wasn't too bad and it turned out pretty well.

The pleats need to be pressed out and re-done; I arranged them for Shannon's figure, not my own.

I think I'm not quite the right shape for late '40s styles - they're very straight up and down and I'm a little curvier, so it's perhaps not the most flattering dress on me.  But it's a comfortable dress so I'll keep wearing it!

Also featured: a vintage hat from Pam, one of my dear church ladies from Jackson, and the cowl I just knit for my Etsy shop.  (Find it here!)