Eggshell Blue Bow Dress

Mod 60’s fashion is not automatically associated with a sweet and feminine style.  Yet, when on occasion it is juxtaposed with the ‘baby doll’ trend, you end up with a very serious, no-frills, freshly classic take on something overtly pretty – a nice combo.  The Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit” presented a version of this style to perfection with Beth’s bow dress in episode 6.  Of course, I was then on a mission to find a historical benchmark for the outfit, and have since found a true vintage pattern from which to replicate my own version.  This is my second “copy” of an outfit from “The Queen’s Gambit” (my first one is posted here).  Being made in a luxurious wool crepe and in the prettiest pastel tone, I think this is the perfect outfit to present to you now for our chilly Eastertide.

THE FACTS:

FABRIC:  a worsted 100% wool crepe with the black contrast being 100% rayon crepe lined in satin finish polyester interlock jersey

PATTERN:  Simplicity #6634, year 1966

NOTIONS NEEDED:  one long 22” invisible zipper for the back closing and lots of thread with a bit of interfacing for under the neckline contrast

TIME TO COMPLETE:  This dress took me 15 to 20 hours of time.  I finished it up on February 27, 2021.

THE INSIDES:  cleanly bias bound

TOTAL COST:  The fabric was $35 for two yards from this Etsy shop (highly recommend!).  All the contrast fabrics are being counted as free since they came from small remnants leftover from other projects

My mom made all of these!

I specifically chose my version of Beth’s bow dress to be a soft blue versus the original mint green.  In the Netflix series, mint green is the color of Beth’s childhood and when worn by her as a young woman it connects her to certain events as she is struggling to find herself.  The prevailing color of my childhood was a different pastel hue, and slightly cooler in tone – soft blue.  I have a small portion of my childhood dresses on hand, and a good number of them are a pretty blue (see picture).  I felt feminine in blue, and I personally sense it compliments my skin tone more than pink, which I have grown to love more in the last several years.  Before the 1940s, blue was traditionally considered to be the more feminine color over pink, after all.  Besides, I have other mint green dresses that I love and could never upstage (see here and here)!

Fashion historian Raissa Bretaña fact checks “The Queen’s Gambit” outfits in this excellent video (watch it here) at Glamour magazine and the mint bow dress is included (skip to the time of 6:02).  Raissa Bretaña agrees this outfit is pretty accurate except for maybe the lack dark stockings or tights, which I added for my iteration.  Happily, as I was searching through pattern images online one day, this particular pattern showed up and I instantly recognized it as a very similar base in seamlines, contrast details, and silhouette of both body and sleeves to Beth’s bow dress.  The story is set in the late 60’s during episode 6, and the inspiration for Beth’s bow dress was 1966 to 1968, so this particular pattern hit the right spot.  I love happy circumstances like this where what you are looking for falls in your lap…only this kind of thing is always a challenge with vintage patterns because it is gamble to see if one is for sale.  As you can tell, I found one and couldn’t be happier with my finished dress!

The original version of this dress (which can be seen in an online exhibit here through the Brooklyn Museum) was crafted in a crepe (click on the info button).  A wool crepe has more body than a rayon, so I went with that because I thought this needs to be winter dress.  It should be a flowing dress but being inspired by the likes of Pierre Cardin means that it should also have a bit of structure, too.  I splurged for my dress and ordered something special I have been wanting to try – worsted wool.  I personally find worsted spun to be less itchy than a regular woolen, and a crepe finish is so very dressy with its soft shine and pebbled texture.  I love this fabric.  Worsted wool is considered stronger, finer, and more substantial of a fiber coming from long-staple pasture raised sheep.  Worsted wool is more expensive on account of the labor intensive production – it is not simply carded like other woolens.  I find it didn’t shrink much in a cold water wash and needs hardly any ironing more than a touch of steam (very low maintenance).  I am a worsted wool convert.

The dress itself was relatively easy to make.  The pattern is pretty basic.  The wool was as soft as melted butter to sew through.  As I was using a fine fabric and the pattern had such clean lines, I took extra time on both the finishing details and the fit so my dress would look first-rate.  I did have a few issues with the sizing and placement of the bust darts.  At first, at the cutting stage, I had graded in some extra width to be ‘safe and not sorry’ later.  By the time my dress was finished, I ended up tailoring out the inch or so which I added.  Oh well.  The bust dart was tricky to perfect because it was an unusual curved, very long, French style one that joins the side seam below my hip.  This different French dart creates a beautifully simplistic front panel with gentle shaping.  I think this is the best feature to the dress, yet it’s only a very low-key element though. 

Lengths of both hem and sleeves ended up different than both what I had originally wanted and what the envelope cover seems to show.  I kept the ‘longer-than-your-normal-60’s-dress’ length because I think it makes my version of Beth’s dress more elegant and something not so youth oriented (like many Mod fashions).  I found the sleeves ending up as bracelet length, but I don’t mind this feature either.  They are very dramatic being so wide and bell-shaped, too.  I can clear off a table without even trying – it’s quite hilarious.  Nevertheless, these kind of sleeves are really quite part of the general flowing aura of this dress, I think.  Can I repeat myself, again…I absolutely love my newest Queen’s Gambit dress…it’s so different from my first one.  It’s remarkable how varied the fashions of the 60’s can be.

My chosen pattern was the shadow of my inspiration dress except for the neckline bow.  This was an easy addition but a bit complex to craft.  I wanted the black stripe only on one side of the bow strip.  The underside needed to be plain blue and not showing the stitching from the contrast stripe on the other side.  This is how it was on Beth’s original dress (I can see as she is running through the café) and I had to recreate that because I love a challenge.  Sewing challenges are a good learning experience to further my skills, and this time will go towards adding a deluxe touch.  

It is always a task in itself to try and figure out how to recreate proportions of details as compared to a picture.  I mostly just kept the bow’s width as wide as the neckline facing for uniformity.  I had to double the width and add in seam allowances because this was going to be a folded over, one seam tie strip.  Then I carefully marked the center length of only one side to the tie strip where the black contrast will go.  I chose not to line the bow so it could hang soft like the rest of the dress.  I thought of crafting the black contrast as a tiny tube, ironing it flat, then top-stitching it down in place on the blue strip.  It was an unnerving step to sew the entire blue bow strip together finally.  If the black contrast was stitched down in the wrong place, my life was about to be miserable.  I absolutely hate unpicking!  However, I turned the tube inside out and it was looking all good after a light ironing!  Whew.  I was so happy it was figured correctly. 

One small, extra cut of the bow strip became the center holder.  I have an extra-large safety pin from behind (inside the neckline) holding my bow down in place.  I do not want to wash the dress with bow on it.  Neither do I want to have to unpick threads before it needs a wash.  Keeping the bow unstitched makes my dress project easy to take care of as well as versatile.  I can wear the dress without the bow for a different look, but really – adding the bow brings this dress from a ‘meh’ to a ‘wow’!  Sometimes it is so amazing how one little added detail makes such a big difference.

For this dress, there isn’t much that needs to be added to it for a complete outfit.  The color blocking and the oversized bow takes most of the center stage.  However, what I am wearing to compliment my dress here make a big difference.  Slip on heels were an important part to the story of this dress for the occasion Beth wears it…she only had time to put on her shoes at the very last minute!  I updated the look with a modern pointed toe, block heeled version. 

Beth’s cuff watch is a small part to the storyline, too.  In a brief scene, she receives a Bulova “American Girl” watch from her (adoptive) mother as a graduation gift (also see this post for detailed pictures).  My 60’s era, two-tone cuff watch is from my Grandmother, as are my earrings, but it is my gold pearl ring which is a similar graduation piece.  My mother recently passed this pearl ring down to me, telling me it was the gift her mother gave to her for her Graduation in 1969.  I’m so glad it fits me because it’s so special to wear.  I’m connected to the past few generations of women in my family history just with my accessories alone.  How cool is this?  Then, I go and choose a color for my dress that recalls my own childhood fashion preferences.  I love this outfit for more than just the fabulous dress alone. 

I will follow up this post with my next one being about another ‘vintage’ childhood style that I am reinterpreting for myself today.  Yes, it is also in blue!  Until then, I do hope everyone has a beautiful, peaceful, and happy Easter weekend! 

“Au Naturel”

As much as I absolutely love to be dressed up and nicely put together, I am finding myself more and more comfortable in an every day, no-fuss, modern casual style with vintage references.  That has been a process in itself, recently.  The last time I had a signature casual style was as a teen in the 90’s – I was either wearing tight, printed tees and hip-hugging pants or oversized shirts and jean shorts, but I was never happy with my body or self-confident in such a get-up…neither would I be now.  However, I was mostly always dressed up then, and for years afterwards, though – between working, church-related activities, and trying to be professional and taken seriously growing up.

Now, I find myself not needing as many fancy clothes as I used to wear in the last 10 years, as I mostly work from home, as society is so grubby, and as our town is sorely lacking in dressy events.  Taking up sports that I never had the chance to enjoy as a teen has helped me finalize an everyday style that makes me feel together, but is unassuming and totally, comfortably me.  Rest assured my penchant for vintage is not going anywhere, as you can pinpoint in subtle references of my outfit details.  Yet, I need something much more darkly punkish and rough-and-tumble worthy to practice my new pastime exercise of skateboarding!  Welcome to the new me for 2020!

I really don’t want to risk much of my own makes when I go out with my board (learning to be a better rider necessarily involves falling), but I am working on filling that gap.  After all, being a “ska8er” girl has a definite air about it…that frequently consists of a specific style involving Converse sneakers (mine are pink, by the way) and the color black (why I have on 1940’s inspired Hell Bunny brand dark jeans)!  Yet, I do always need something me-made or a part of me feels missing, incomplete.  The most practical and immediate need in my casual wardrobe was a good jacket.  Taking up an outdoor sport in winter where I live can be challenging in many ways but I’ll start with the one I can address.  I currently have only one casual coat amongst a closet of dressy ones, and that one was bought RTW in my late teen years and is slightly tighter in fit now than I remember.  That is now amended with my sewing of this versatile wool blend, fully lined, mid-weight jacket!  I used a relatively new Burda Style pattern and modern scuba knit for an updated jacket that is a blend of two classics – a blazer and a bomber.

The open front reminds me of a suiting blazer, especially the way the original Burda version was completed.  The no-closure front gives me just enough fresh air to keep from being overheated when I am skateboarding.  It really is a tough full body exercise, people!  With the cozy lining, this jacket is much warmer than it might appear.  The loose, straight sleeves and raglan shoulder seams are so comfy and provide plenty of room to move in while still looking tailored.  There is the classic bomber jacket waistband with welt pockets.  Yet, a fine woolen sweater knit tweed helps combine dressy and sporty together in a way I absolutely love!  The sweater knit was opaque black on the “wrong” side so it was reversible and would have been quite appropriate to use on its own.  However, I find anything rabbit hair blended to be incredibly itchy to my skin, but I know it lends a lofty warmth so it was perfectly suited for outerwear.  The design calls for a jacquard or something with body, but this sweater knit is anything but that – it’s very loose and drapes well.  I like the unfussy look a softer material lends to the Burda Style jacket.  Dressy yet sporty, as I said, soft yet warm…which is pretty much 100% me!

THE FACTS:

FABRIC:  The black and white tweed is a wool, angora, acrylic blend, and it is fully lined in a flannel back satin, with poly scuba knit as accents

PATTERN:  Burda Style “Open Jacket” #106 from the February 2018 magazine

NOTIONS:  All I needed was thread and interfacing.

TIME TO COMPLETE:  This took about 7 hours to make and was finished on December 11, 2019.

THE INSIDES:  …completely covered by the full lining!

TOTAL COST:  I found the tweed as a 1 ½ yard remnant so I got a good deal…$10.  The flannel backed satin was bought on discount but not as good as a deal…about $14. The scuba knit was remnants leftover from a skirt I have made but not yet blogged about.

This was so much easier to make than it looks, but maybe that’s because the instructions were good on this pattern.  Besides, I have more practice on creating welt pockets by now so they’re not as stressful or confusing as used to be!  In lieu of traditional ribbed knit “sweatshirt” trim for the traditional bomber jacket waist hem, I merely used the same scuba knit around the neck.  Doing so provided a continuity to the jacket and worked out just as nice as a rib knit.  The center front extension tab at the waist hem was a bit tricky to accomplish, and I took a few experiments to understand just what the instructions were telling me to do, but once I ‘got it’ everything turned out great.  I chose the Burda Style size I always use and the fit seems to right on, as well.

The sleeves were drafted to be quite long, and so I adapted them slightly.  I left out the separate sew-on cuffs for more of a casual option and to make it simpler to sew, but really – it was merely an easy way to leave off a few inches in the total length.  I did cut just one cuff in half and sew each of the two parts into the sleeve bottoms like it was a facing to finish the inside.  The sleeves end at my knuckles if I do not fold them over, but if I want the look of a cuff (or just to get them out of the way of my hands), adding the facing inside gives me the option of doing so.  This was the only adaptation to the pattern.  The rest says true to the original design.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole thing – the part which really brings this up to a level above – is the bagged lining.  You leave an opening in one side seam to the lining body and sew it, right sides together, along the neck and front edges.  Then, you sew the lining to the seam which connects the scuba knit waist band to the jacket body, stretching as you go just like when it was first sewn in.  The trickiest part to the whole jacket is trying to connect the corner seam points to the bottom front of the jacket.  After that is accomplished, the whole jacket is turned right sides out through that lining seam opening.  I love this part!  It’s so satisfying to cover up all the stitching and raw edges in such a cleanly professional manner with one step!  I ironed and top-stitched the edges down and hand stitched together the lining opening and the sleeve-to-facing seams.  Sewing is literally magic.

No matter what the original motivation to sew this jacket was, this is literally more than just an item for my skateboarding escapades.  It is just a practical and useful piece to make to fill in for those times in my life that are not as glamorous as I would like to daydream about.  It is for real living.  Many of my vintage me-made items do also fall into that category – such as this movie inspired 40’s outfit for one of my most frequently worn examples – but it’s nice on occasion to find a style for myself apart from it which appreciates what designs we have to enjoy today.  Just sharing this post in itself helps me break some sort of comfort boundary about publicly embracing my less than opulent side…the plain old me, just doing my “thing”.  In the French, it’s an “an unpretentious state” of an “au naturel” Kelly!

…To Peplum or Not to Peplum Is the Question

One would think that it is only living things that would be able to make up their minds.  In the case of this year 1945 dress, I feel the pattern’s design could not make up its mind whether or not it wanted a peplum, and what styling it really wanted.  Being a pattern for teens and juniors, it totally makes sense to be a bit mixed up…since those of the “in between years” are being overwhelmed by everything!  Now, with some dramatic re-sizing and re-drafting, some cheaply priced wool suiting, and an old unwanted skirt from my basement to re-fashion, I think I’ve hit the right balance to rock this War-time design as a grown woman, ready to flaunt the cold of winter in panache.  Of course, a pair of killer 40’s style ankle strap shoes also completes my power 40’s outfit – they are velvet fabric reproductions from Rocket Dog.

This dress was actually my Christmas outfit for this past 2016 holiday, but I think the plaid has enough small amounts of other colors in it that, together with the navy it is paired with, keeps things relevant for most all of fall of winter, as well.  If I want it more holiday-ish, I can pair my dress with more red items or even browns or goldens.  Women of the 40’s loved to use plaids (especially teen girls), so I’m focusing on that rather than my mental query that I might be wearing some sort of Scottish plaid (which is why my bottom half is in a solid).  Reds and blues were popular colors for teens wear in the 40’s after all, too, so although this is my “adult” dress I am sticking to colors and fabric types “traditional” for the pattern’s intended audience – juniors, that is, those of the 14 to 18 crowd just as they were officially being known as teenagers (see info source here).

This dress is also my first time making a vintage garment where the print (or at least the contrast fabric) is just in the bodice and nothing else.  I’ve always admired those kinds of two-fabric clothes, always wondering if they would work for me…now I know they do!

THE FACTS:

FABRIC:  The solid navy skirt and sleeves are in a 95% wool/5% polyester blend suiting from Fashion Fabrics Club in town.  It has a textured finish much like a gabardine.  The plaid, re-fashioned from an old skirt no longer worn, is a half and half rayon/poly blend with twill finish.  It’s label inside read as “Robyne’s Dream“, “Made in the USA”, and I believe this is from the 90’s.  I have seen this style of red, forest green, yellow, white, royal and black plaid labeled as a “Prince of Wales” design. The waistline and the peplum are lined in a basic, navy blue, all-cotton broadcloth, merely scraps on hand.

PATTERN:  McCall’s #6297, year 1945

NOTIONS:  I had everything on hand in my stash that I needed here – thread, a zipper, bias tapes, interfacing, shoulder pads.  The three buttons down the front are vintage pieces from hubby’s Grandmother’s stash.

TIME TO COMPLETE:  This dress was a last minute decision and was started the week before Christmas and took about 20 hours’ worth of time.  It was finished just before leaving for Midnight church service, December 24, 2016.  Whew!  I was ‘cutting’ it close, ha ha!

THE INSIDES:  All cleanly bias bound.  Strips of 100% cotton batiste are used as facing for the inner waistband for a lovely smooth feeling against my skin.

TOTAL COST:  I am counting the plaid fabric from the re-fashioned skirt and my cotton lining scarps as being free, as well as the notions from on hand, with the wool only costing $2 a yard.  My total for this dress is about $3 for only a yard and a half of the wool I used…how awesome is that!?

This project is one big hooray for re-using and re-fashioning!  As I’ve discussed past posts, my wardrobe is something I consider long term, and if I do not wear or am not happy with an item, it is re-done and cut into so it can used differently ‘til it is 100% what I will use or wear.  Why can’t unwanted clothes be treated as a commodity (defined as in “useful or valuable item”) for creativity just the same as a newly cut piece of fabric, the way I see it?  Anyways, this skirt had been an occasional favorite when I was between 10 and 15 years of age, but for the last 10 plus years it has been in my fabric stash waiting for a new incarnation.  Something from when I was a teen, becomes a new garment for grown-up me, sewn from a pattern catered for teens.  Oh, the irony…

My original skirt before re-fashioning was a simple long bias skirt with a gathered elastic waist.  Thus, I had a good amount of fabric to work with, but the skinny width was restrictive.  This is part of the reason why the plaid is not as perfectly matched as I would have liked and also the fact it is on the bias…although I do like the look of the plaid cross-grain!  Cutting off the two side seams and folding the length over on itself, I had just enough as you can see.  The front half of the skirt became my bodice fronts, while the back half was enough for the bodice back, peplums, and a neckline tie that ended up making piping for instead. So close!

For some reason, the envelope and instructions to this dress are one of the most fragile in my pattern collection, but the tissue pattern pieces are seemingly fine.  Just in case of a damaging accident, but also since I knew I needed to both add in several inches for size (29 inch bust, yikes! so small…) and bring the dress to some adult proportions, I traced all but the skirt and sleeve pieces onto new, semi-sheer medical paper.  In case you didn’t know, any pattern from about the early mid-1930’s up to about 1946 that are marked “Junior Misses” will be every short in proportions and used “as-is” are only sized for an under 5 foot tall person or an under sized teen.  Most of the time I have to add in a good 2 or 3 inches horizontally to bring ‘sleeves-bust-waist-hips’ all down.  It’s kind of what is done to make a pattern appropriate for someone tall, and opposite of what needs to be done to fit someone petite.  Yet, as I demonstrate, these juniors’ patterns are very usable for those are willing to do the ‘work’ of dramatically grading and re-sizing.  However, doing such an effort (in my mind) can only be a good thing – it brings new styles to suddenly be available to use besides teaching bunches about working with patterns.

The original cover drawing is quite cute – and I do not do outright “cute” if I can help it.  Both neckline options are the nails in the “cute factor” coffin (I generally find it hard to like a Peter Pan collar on myself), so they were the first to go and be re-drafted while I was tracing out a copy of the tissue pieces.  I originally figured on making an open V-neckline, and adding in straps that would twist and criss-cross across the chest opening and come back around to button back down on the same side – very military-like and strong, similar to Simplicity #1539, also from 1945.  Well, I guess you can tell I didn’t end up sticking with that idea – not here at least, but hopefully in the future on another project.  My neckline was the very last thing that I figured out before the dress was fully finished.  In the end, I merely took the lapels I drafted as self-facing and made them into a small, slightly pointed, turned back collar instead.  I like the simple subtlety of it, even though it was not at all what I had planned for at all.  There’s enough going on with the rest of the dress, so I felt it needed something non-distracting but still dramatically plunging for a not-as-conservative, grown-up touch.

What is not so obvious but remarkably lovely to the bodice is the way the bust is shaped by a vertical shoulder pleat.  This so completely exaggerates the shoulders as only the 40’s can do – I love it!  It really does wonders to complement the waist, especially since there is a set-in waistband to define the middle of this dress.  The fold of the shoulder pleat on my dress ends so precisely at the seam of the shoulder/sleeve, it was bit tricky to sew around without catching it…a bit of unpleasant unpicking made things alright.  It’s rather a shame that this detail is only in the front (much like the peplum, I guess).  Nevertheless, I still wanted a very defined line at the end of those shoulder edge pleats so there are ½ inch shoulder pads inside.  I always find it so curious how well gi-normous 1980s shoulder pads seem to be made to go inside many of my 40’s fashions.  Except on the occasional dress, I think the WWII years’ silhouettes are just lacking some sort of potent, calculated, confident fullness without emphasized shoulders.  I have seen similar vertical running shoulder pleats on many 40’s patterns circa 1945 – a McCall’s #6102, McCall’s #6902, and Simplicity #1891, as well as a modern (retro-inspired) pattern Butterick #6363, to name off a handful.  Also, for some hard-copy examples, here’s a photo of a mid-1950s wool dress, an extant 1940’s rayon crepe gown, my own Chanel-inspired 1967 linen suit set, and an 80’s chiffon dress, (notice the varied fabrics and years).  This ingenious method of bodice shaping is too good a detail to keep to only one decade.

With such prominent shoulders, I softened the sleeves by not sewing them as set-in.  The sleeves were sewn to the bodice much like on a man’s shirt, connected together at the shoulder so then the entire side seam – from sleeve hem the bottom hem – is stitched in one long continuous seam.  The sleeves are quite deeply cut, similar to this 1946 blouse that I’ve already made.  My sleeve ends taper to being fitted at the elbows but nonetheless these are very easy to move around for full movement and reach room – much appreciated.  Reach room is something I generally do not find modern patterns have unless I alter them in some manner.  Reach room is under respected…if something is good enough to make and wear, accepting being restricted with basic arm movements is something no one needs tolerate.

I was originally very hesitant about sewing on the skirt’s peplum flaps, but I’m so glad they turned out to be something new to like!  Apparently the odd, front, half-peplum design was a quietly popular yet not mainstream style for the mid-decade.  Besides seeing front half-peplums on Juniors’ dresses in my 40’s Sears catalog, the character of Rose from Season Two of the Marvel TV show “Agent Carter” is wearing a lovely drapey rayon dress in this same style.  Even Simplicity pattern Company released their own half-peplum the same year (1945) as #1357.  For one more tactile example, here’s an awesome vintage original half-peplum dress, in a wonderful novelty print, which had been for sale on Etsy.  I certainly don’t “get” the “why” of the style, but since before this dress I’d never really tried a peplum before, I figured half of one might be an easy way to acclimate myself to them.  Turns out this is not all that bad because being anchored on all but one edge prevents too much “pouf” of the peplum flaps.  Still, I generally do not like corners being cut, “party in the front, business in back”, or “coffin dresses” (as they are distastefully called when everything is in the front and the back is totally neglected).  However, technically the back of my dress is not neglected at all – it does have the plaid bodice, too, and the lovely classic 1940s tri-panel skirt back.  There is still one extra touch I added that makes sure the details from behind are just as nice as the front.

Self-made, matching plaid fabric piping runs along the bottom seam of the set-in waistband.  This was actually my hubby’s idea…I’ll give him the full credit for this great custom notion for which I was doubtful about at first.  I did not have the right thick cotton cording on hand for the piping so instead I used several strands together of thinner cotton cording on hand that we use to hold plants upright in the garden.  A bias strip of fabric was then wrapped around the piping and stitched down using my invisible zipper foot (just like what I demonstrated in this post).  This piping made installing the side zipper a bit challenging, and it’s not the best closure I’ve done…but it works to close the dress just fine and that’s good enough for me.

I guess it’s not all that surprising that this sweet vintage style for young ladies and teens is so strongly adult in its attribution – in 1945, women on the cusp of growing up were receiving more representation, acknowledgement, and opportunities, all with greater diversity, that year than ever before.  Firstly, 1945 was the year of a historic Miss America Pageant Competition.  That year of 1945 was the first year the winner was offered a school scholarship as her prize, rather than gifts of an item to wear or travel packages.  Year 1945 was also the first year that a young lady won who had been a Collage Graduate, but more significant was the fact that the winner, Bess Myerson by name, was a Jewish American.  She used her fame for so much good – raising awareness to biased prejudice, as well as helping out the last of the war effort, and later as a New York Politician.  Teen-age girls must have been a big enough “thing” in American after all to get a long article in Life magazine for December 11, 1945 (read the whole thing here, pages 91 to 99).

Furthermore, the magazine Seventeen had just begun the October of the year before (1944) and in 1945 were really gaining influence and gumption to speak out for their intended audience, “the age when a girl is no longer a child, yet isn’t quite a woman.”  Periodicals focused only on Hollywood stars and starlets were going out of favor and Helen Valentine, who, after starting out at Vogue, had already begun Mademoiselle: The Magazine for Smart Young Women by 1944. Seventeen was started by her as a magazine meant to be a teenagers’ voice, a benchmark for thought, and a place to bounce off ideas, so much so that they were not scrupulous about mentioning heavy world affairs and controversy.  By the 1950’s, Seventeen quickly moved from Valentine’s original focus on service and citizenship toward themes of fashion, sensuality, and body scruples…more like magazines of today.  See this amazing web page for more early history of Seventeen magazine.

Young ladies of 1945 and after were influencing history like never before.  I hope a lovely dress style like the one I made for this post might be just a small example of that fact.  Teenagers’ clothes of today generally strike me as disrespectful to their potential and distasteful to their capabilities.  Sloppy clothes, ones trying to be overly “on trend”, or the large majority of clothes which have writing or characters in the most surprising places all seem to put them in a box of what society expects them to feel and react – and many end up never growing out of those attitudes and habits.  This is in no small part (in my opinion) to the incidental that what one wears can impact how we think of ourselves.  Not every teen or 20 something is an electronic addicted being with an I-don’t-give-a-blank level of respect.  They need a constructive way to build their own entity.  Let me share a Helen Valentine quote from the book Fashioning Teenagers: A Cultural History of Seventeen Magazine.  After seeing the 90% of teens at the 1945 opening of New York’s U.N. building, she said, “People have an idea that the only thing they’re interested in is their next date, but it isn’t so. They (young people) are really thinking about very important things and we ought to be thinking about them in those terms.”

Vintage clothes for the middle years strike me as giving them a taste of their future in their own special way, with some small detail of the features of the clothes styles they grew out of so as to not forget where they are and where they have been in life.  It’s like their fashion and not just their education was attempting to transition them into the confidence of independent and capable decisions while allowing them the fun and freedom that still part of their life.  Their ideas and habits are the future we all have to deal with.  May teens of today wear clothing that is respectful of their place in the world every bit as much as fashion of the past has done.

Bloody Blitzkrieg Dress

“We have to move on – all of us.”  – Peggy Carter, in Season 1, episode “Valediction”

Starting off a whole new year always can be a basketful of emotion – including forethought and contemplative hindsight…and new, calculating, resolutions which may or may not result from the previous two.  Whether you are upbeat or downbeat, I’m letting some of Peggy (of Marvel’s “Agent Carter” fame) inspire me with a dress she had on while uttering her best, most inspirational quotes.  I’m including one especially in my mottos to remember for the New Year as I wear a sewn “Agent Carter” look-alike 1940s burgundy wool dress with Peggy’s trademark floral pearl earrings (also self-made).

Just busy doing filing work at the S.S.R. office…

“I know my value…” is perhaps the best line Peggy is known by from Season one.  This is a short, to the point one-liner which needs some potent self-confidence to pronounce properly.  Knowing one’s own self-worth and humbly but proudly believing in it is invaluable.  Hmmm…sewing for oneself also provides a healthy dose of self-assurance (from both the creative “high” and the new dress excitement).  Thus, here’s a newly made, awesome Peggy Carter dress to help me not just “step in her shoes” but step into wearing her clothes!  It’s like understanding a character on the inside by starting on the outside.

She needed to be authoritative to hold her own in the 40’s when it was primarily a man’s world, so for her undercover mission to “rescue” Steve’s (I mean, Captain America’s) blood in Season 1’s episode “The Blitzkrieg Button” she went with a strong rich sanguine colored dress.  The center of her chest is tightly held together yet pulled open, like her emotions, while the rest of the dress is simple and subdued with the vintage pearl buckle and earrings giving just enough class.  I adhered very closely to the inspiration dress designed by Gigi Melton, even using wool crepe, while still basing it off a mid-1940’s vintage pattern (with significant re-drafting and re-sizing).

THE FACTS:

FABRIC:   2 yards of 100% wool crepe with burgundy Kona 100% cotton to line the dress bodice

PATTERN:  Simplicity #1016, year 1944.  My copy is actually a Juniors’ half-size 12 pattern that I bought for cheap because of its size and because it was missing pieces.

NOTIONS:  I had everything I needed on hand already from awhile back, all I needed halfway through was an extra spool of thread and a zipper.  The buckle is vintage carved shell.  The flower backs that are put between my ear and the pearl of my earring are simply buttons (LaMode style #46455).

TIME TO COMPLETE:  This dress took me at least 20 hours (I stopped counting after that) over the course of a week and a half (much longer than my ‘normal’ time spent on a dress).  It was finally finished on January 11, 2016.

THE INSIDES:  I started off with good intentions, so all the skirt seams are French.  Then, I realized this project was involved, so I went to bias bound seams for all the main edges (side seams).  The armholes are left raw…just wanted it done enough to wear when the end was in sight!

TOTAL COST:  The wool was bought on clearance for dirt cheap when there was a Hancock Fabrics store closing in 2015.  I believe the fabric was two or three dollars a yard – insane, right!!!  This is why I got about 5 yards…enough for a dress and a vintage coat (to be made yet).  The lining for the bodice was a remnant bought at Jo Ann’s Fabric for only 4 dollars.  So I suppose my dress came to a total of about $10 with everything, notions included.

First off, making this dress was a beastly affair, one that I wrestled with insensibly for being such a basic shape.  This was a hard way for me to start off my new year of sewing.  The pins keeping it together scratched me mercilessly, the seams of the lined portions were too thick, the dress kept falling off my machine into a dusty corner of the basement, and almost every dart had to be adjusted and taken in many times post-completion.  This isn’t counting the unpicking (which I absolutely hate doing) plus the few times each day (between working on it) that the dress needed to be tried on just to see if my adjustments did the trick.  In all, it gave me trouble in every which way…all except for the neckline, which was the trickiest part as well as being the self-drafted part, and it turned out great.  It figures.  You know, I can take a difficult project, or even a challenging one, but one that refuses to co-operate no matter what I do is almost more than I can handle.  No kidding, sometimes fabric can seem to have its own mind.  Weird, huh?

The wool crepe itself was great to work with, wonderfully smooth, free of itchiness, and flowing.  I know, bad me – a 40’s dress out of such a fine fabric would probably not be seen in the real WWII times unless you had a stash or saved up bunches from rationing in other departments of life.  However, it was the perfect color match to Agent Carter’s original dress, besides being something I both had plenty of on hand and never sewn with before.  All this is aside of the practical fact it is both soft and warm, perfect for the near freezing winter we’ve been having so far.

It was very serendipitous for me to have found several points of reference to go on helping me draft, make, and base my dress on authentic history.  Even finding these attributes were part of the reason I decided to go ahead and make this dress (which had been on the “back burner” of my mind since Season 1 in 2015).  I figured I had enough help and ideas to go on and another Agent Carter dress is always a good thing for me to have – so why not?!  Please visit my Pinterest board of inspiration for this dress to see the patterns and pictures that motivated me.

Hey, Peggy’s dress and my own even wrinkle the same way…

This dress might not be “up there” as one of my awesome creations, but to me it has all the best that the 1940s has to offer for modern wearing.  It has simplicity of style enough (especially the back view) to be classic and not too obviously vintage, like some 30’s or 20’s fashions.  It also has practicality with the sneaky low-key pockets, ease of movement front pleats, basic short sleeves, and high neck for both warmth and demureness.  Yet, there is a subtle alluring factor keeping the dress so feminine – the low slashed front opening with interesting pleating.  I think the floral of the earrings and the pearl of them and the buckle breaks things up (besides dressing things up) just enough, with the rich deep color and different finish of the fabric lending a richness.  Not meaning to toot my own horn here too much, but, hey – I guess it shows how much I really like this dress!  All that effort was worth it for me to end up with something like this.

As the base for my dress, I was looking for a very basic mid-WWII pattern with a high neck that had a tie.  I found it in Simplicity #1016 and my first step was to trace out a copy on sheer medical paper then hack, resize and adapt it.  Being a teen size, I added a swath of horizontal 2 inches above the bust, under the chest, right at the level of the bottom of the armhole to bring the bust, waist, and hips down to the right proportions.  This sort of adjustment has always worked before when I’ve re-sized Juniors’ patterns from the 60’s and 70’s, and it worked this time for the 40’s too!  Then I added in an overall 4 inches to be on the safe side since it was for a tiny size.  As I was working with a copy, I had leeway to add in the inches properly, vertically across in increments and not just on the center or on the side seams.  I believe my problems with fitting came merely from the pattern running large and me not completely accounting for the extra room coming from the front details.  The junior-to-adult change was right on.

Finally, I re-drafted to add in the pleats.  The inspiration dress had ties pulling the chest opening open, sort of like ties on curtains, but I wanted something sewn in place to give the same immovable illusion so I drafted slanted, sun-ray-style, open pleats underneath.  I had done similar pleats when I made my 1940s dance dress, Simplicity #1587 (posted here), in a different direction but I just studied how it was drafted and turned it around (like figuring out a puzzle piece) to see how it would work in a different angle.  Then I chose how wide I wanted the darts, how far apart, and how long then slashed and taped accordingly.  Looking at the envelope backs of my inspiration patterns also helped justify that I was on the right track.  When it finally came to stitching the front bodice together, it was an awesome moment when I realized that not only did my drafting work but sewing is like working on a flat plane yet seeing through it to create in 3-D.  Sewing is really so insanely awe-inspiring…some times more than others make me perceive so much.

The neckline ties were still sewn on as the pattern originally planned, except I folded them in, tacked them down, then brought them back out from inside to form the band that seems to ‘pull back’ the pleats along the chest opening.  It was almost more hand sewing than I could handle invisibly stitching the tie strips in place arching upwards along the neckline.  The tie strips wrap around to end lapped over one another at the back neckline.

Agent Carter’s original dress has a full back zipper as the method of closure – seen in a fleeting screen shot when she hangs up her coat in the S.S.R. office (on the episode “Blitzkrieg Button”).  Now, I hate to criticize full back zippers in 40’s dresses because I’ll confess to having sewn them in some of my own garments, besides the fact that the original dress by Gigi Melton is too lovely to find fault with.  However, with all the fine details to my dress (much hand sewing, wool crepe fabric, etc.), I wanted to go all out authentic 40’s and have only the side zipper in conjunction with a working front closure in the neckline details.  Ugh, was it tough to figure but there is a hidden hook-and-eye where the neckline meets.

Now, besides the front neckline, I also changed up the pattern a bit more by eliminating all the small gathers and sewing darts in the same place instead, both above and below at the waist in the skirt and in the bodice.  This smoothes out the silhouette and makes it simple and unfussy, like Agent Carter’s dress.  This was not a problem anywhere else but in the skirt front.  I made darts at first, but after the rest of the dress was done, I went and made two knife pleats in the front instead.  These type of pleats in the front of skirts and dresses were used more in the early 40’s before rationing started being enforced, but these are only two in number and not very deep so these are a plausible effect to a 1944 design – the pleats also compliment the neckline!

At first, I considered leaving out the pockets, but they are discreetly unnoticeable on this dress and always so handy!  They were sewn as if in a really basic welt pocket method and yet sort of like a facing – right sides together, sewn in a small loop, slashed and turned in to the wrong side.  Then half of the entire pocket was sewn to itself and turned towards the middle.  Easy!  I’ve never seen pockets like this yet.  They’re not hidden by some clever trick or made to look like part of the design, just basic and practical.  I love the 1940s!

What I don’t love about the 40s is the harsh facts of the bloodier side to the decade, like the Blitz that the dress I made is remotely associated with.  England endured the Blitz admirably.  Germany, late in the Blitz, began to start dropping some its very successful heavy high explosive bombs, showing their aptitude for forward thinking inventions.  Both sides came after each other hard with the best of what they had – and sadly many people suffered in between.  Peggy’s dress and my blog title is not trying to be flippant about the blitz or England.  On the contrary – just as what happens in Peggy’s ‘life’ when she wears this dress, much of history is sad, powerful, and full of emotion but good nevertheless to learn of and re-visit at times.  Fashion is intertwined with history…the combo of a dress just as strong as the woman who wears it can do big things.

Every woman could do with a little bit o’ Peggy in their life – it’s lovely.  I’m going to miss not having a Season 3 of “Agent Carter” this 2017.  She might not be relevant for this year but her message and persona is always appropriate.  We need non-super-power, down to earth, heroes like Peggy, one who can help you with her own attitude and outlook not just someone up on a pedestal, unattainable.

“I know my value…anyone else’s opinion really doesn’t matter.”  It was an attitude like this that got Britain through the awful Blitzkrieg.  It is always important and supremely empowering to believe with Peggy you do not need the world’s support to see yourself as awesome and capable.  Thank you, Agent Carter, for the reminder.

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