To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory. Isaiah 61:3

Friday, June 20, 2014

1920s Great Gatsby/Royal Ascot Dress

One of my many costuming goals for the year 2014 was to make an entire wardrobe of 1920s clothing.  I had watched Phryne Fisher wearing fabulous, flowing, fun, fine frocks on Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and I was hooked on the 20s.  And why not?  The style is relatively simple to construct, the hats are FABULOUS and the style lends itself to "coolness" for the hot Idaho summers.  Well, as is the story of my life, differing forces decided to thwart my costuming desires and as of this date, I have only one 1920s dress for the year 2014.  Oh well.  I have lots of 20s fabrics and patterns in my sewing room for next year!

I was flooding my "1920s Fashion" Pinterest board with hundreds of images of hats, dresses, hair styles, shoes and coats, when I stumbled across this lovely frock.  My world stood still.  My eyes dialated.  My mouth went dry then instantly started salivating like Pavlov's Dog.  My creative juices started flowing in earnest and I felt the instant flash of lust and desire.  
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I don't know why I am so drawn to this dress.  I honestly don't!  It isn't heavily beaded.  It isn't over the top.  It isn't anything really super special.  It isn't even my favorite color for corn sakes!!  But my heart skips a beat everytime I see it!  

Here is the original in all its splendor.  It is from an online store called 1st Dibs.  I fell in love and so decided to make a similar dress.


Source:  1st Dibs


I love the color combination of black and yellow, but the black and white bead stripes were a little too much for me...


For Christmas, my Mother-in-Law gifted me with gift VISAs for fabric, so in January, I set off to JoAnn's.  They were having a clearance on many of the out of season special occasion fabrics and a wonderful maize yellow was among the colors.  
This was the perfect dress to make with my maize yellow crepe and chiffon!


The color is really washed out in the pictures...it is more vibrant in person.


To get the beading pattern, I enlarged the image of the original on my computer and traced it on computer paper.  When I got the size I liked, I cut it out and put on my dress.  I slipped the paper with the flower pattern under the chiffon layer and worked it around until it was at the right angle.  After I was got it to where I liked it, I pinned it down.  After taking the dress off, I then used a disappearing ink pen to trace the pattern to the chiffon!


The beads for the flower are small bugle beads. 

 I wanted a beaded rope necklace, but couldn't find one in my price range...liiiiiike This One.  I was at Walmart and discovered glass beads that closely resembled the beads in the original 1920s rope necklace!  Score!!!  I ran home with my newly acquired beads and went to work making my necklace!





The pattern I used for most of the dress.  The under dress is a simple slip/sheath.  I am thinking of making several for simple summer dresses.  It was very simple to put together.  I used the top of the dress from the pattern, leaving off the sleeves and scooping down the neckline.  The skirt of my dress I was my own "pattern".  It is two looooooong pieces of black chiffon cut at different lengths with a majority of the fabric gathered at the hips.  Then I cut a long piece of black chiffon for the belt/sash.

Because I will be wearing this to the Royal Ascot Tea at Costume College, I wanted a very wide brimmed cloche.  At the beginning of last year, I made a wide brimmed cloche for a lovely friend and copied the hat for myself before I sent hers off.  You can see the naked wire frame here.  Several years ago, I had purchased from eBay some fabulous antique horse hair and chenille millinery braid in black.  Now I finally had a chance to use it!  Laaaaaaaaa!!!!!  After spray painting the white wires of the brim's frame, I was ready to get started.  I have a Pinterest board of Wide Brimmed Cloches that fed my creativity and proved to me that they did use silk flowers on their hats and not just ribbon flowers!  Yeah!  This made me particularly happy because I had some fabulous flowers in my stach!  Daffodils, Ranunculus, Alstromerias, Sweet Peas and a Mum.  Antique flower happiness!!!


I wanted to create the look of flowers cascading out of a flower basket...

The Daffodils and Ranunculus make me super happy!



I originally wanted to just have the millinery braid for the crown of the hat, but it was too "squishy".  I ended up shortening the straw crown and slipping the stitched together braid over the top.

Close up of my braid.  It truly is fabulous.  
Tomorrow is the 3rd annual Great Gatsby Picnic that I will be attending in my sunny yellow flower dress.  I soooooo cannot wait to take it for it's maiden voyage!

Be Blessed my friends!

g


20 comments:

  1. Wow! This looks great! So much like the original! Especially the flower motif.

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    1. Thank you so much LM!! Your comment is exactly what I like to hear!
      Blessings!
      g

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  2. Beautiful! And based on one of my favorite dresses :)

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    1. Thank you so much Katherine! How fun that you too like this dress! It is just so fabulous!
      Blessings!
      g

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  3. Stupentacularilicious! Takes my breath away!

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    1. Ooooooh...I am going to have to remember that word! Thank you so much Jeanette!
      Blessings!
      g

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  4. The dress is gorgeous but i lost my head over that hat:D

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    1. Oh wow! What a wonderful compliment Maqda! I am pretty happy with how the hat turned out!
      Blessings!
      g

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  5. that hat is breathtaking... and the dress is adorable too!

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    1. Thank you for your wonderful compliment Alison!
      Blessings!
      g

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  6. All in all, fabulous! And I totally understand the "deer caught in the headlights" response. My own personal squirrel attacks confirm that.
    Val

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    1. Hahahahaha!! Those instances can be very fun or very vexing...I am happy to know I am not alone in my suffering! Thank you Val!
      Blessings!
      g

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  7. Georgeous! I can't wait to see it at Costume College

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    1. Thank you so much Tracey! It is getting close to that time isn't it? Can't wait!
      Blessings!
      g

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  8. The colors! The beading! THAT HAT! Breathtaking!

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    1. Awe!! Thank you so much for your awesome compliment Gabriela!
      Blessings!
      g

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  9. Just lovely. I'm so envious of your attention span towards beading (and all that lovely soutache on the Ruth dress!), I get bored so easily XD I can't wait to see photos of this in action!

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    1. Thank you Crystal! There are times during my binge sewing on things such as soutache and beading that I really have to talk myself into finishing what I have started...but in the end, I push through. Don't know if that is an overall good thing or not?
      Blessings!
      g

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  10. PRETTY! Amazing beadwork on the dress, Gina. The hat is lovely. How wonderful to have such great materials in your stash. And I love what you did with the cascading flowers. Lastly, I must compliment you on your wonderfully expressive descriptions, specifically the one of your love for the original inspiration dress. Such a way with words!

    Best,
    Quinn

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    1. Thank you so much Quinn! The beadwork took way longer than I expected it to...What wonderful compliments!!! I must say that I like to create word pictures so that others can "feel" how I feel about something!! You have totally made my day!

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