1901 Orange Autumn Dress

Sewing patterns available here

Hello everyone!
As always two or three months pass between my posts and I’m extremely sorry. All my dresses keep me extremely busy during the working week and I have barely time for myself. But here I am with this wonderful Edwardian dress I made and photographed back in August.

This dress was a little bit different from other dresses:

  1. The bodice: the bodice consists of a jacket (the orange one) and a vestee. I had to separate these two pieces since the fashion plated I was working with suggested that. The jacket was a challenge to make. I had some doubts about its construction and if could stand on its own without collapsing but at the end everything went well. The vestee instead was quite easy to make but a lot of hand sewing went into it: it opens on one side and it has a C.F. closure as well.
  2. The skirt: it was quite easy since all the Edwardian skirts are pretty the same; fitted on the front and loose on the back. But this time I also had to add loops and buttons and two little flounces (the white ones) which were a challenge to add.

I choose a satin cotton which was not a great choice since it ended up a little bit stiff and less flowing like the fashion plate probably is:

Another thing I had to alter was the collar and the motif. I choose a plain cotton finished with cyan bias tape (the same used for the vestee and faux inner sleeves). I had the mad idea to make the lace by myself but I change my mind when I found that I was already in late with my schedule. It’s a pity that many things are not produced anymore!

This time I also made a hat to go with this dress. I used a 1909 book for millinery and I follow the steps written. It was quite difficult for me (a millinery super beginner and a not-speaking-english native) to understand what to do. At the end I had to make twice the frame of the hat since I used a thinner wire that made the hat collapsing just with a blow of the hand.
Once I covered the hat with fabric I found that the white cotton I was using was too thin and the inner structure were quite visible when the light hit it: I wanted to cry ‘cos that meant a lot of work in addition.
At the end I had to add three layers of cotton!

Hope you liked this post and see you in the next one!