Once in a Blue Moon

I love the fashions of bygone days, mainly the 50's and 60's.  Whenever I look at photographs from those decades I just long to be a part of them.  I missed out on the 50's, and was pretty young in the 60's, but nonetheless, I am drawn to them.  My mom always wore dresses it seems, and often we had matching ones.  I look at her in photographs and love the dresses she wore.  I wish that she would have saved them.  I would have worn them today.  Thankfully, she taught me to sew at a young age and I am forever grateful for that.  Since I am drawn to these retro fashions, I have decided to have an ongoing series called "Retro Runway."  This will be my attempt to refashion today's clothing, giving them a retro vibe.  Of course, when I say "today's clothing" I might just mean something from the 80's or 90's, like the dress I started with below.  I picked this up at a free clothing exchange.  I was first drawn to the navy and white.  It had a huge double collar, double-breasted bodice, big white buttons, and a dropped waist.  It had potential! 

I drew inspiration from these two vintage patterns...

(Image Source)

(Image Source)

And, this is what I ended up with...

You can continue reading if you would like to see the steps I took to complete this dress.

I began by cutting away the collars, sleeves, and skirt.  I didn't bother with a seam ripper.  I just cut everything away with my scissors.

I then turned the bodice around, placed it on my dress form and pinned to fit.  I drew where I wanted my new neckline to be.

In order for the back to fit properly I needed to make a couple of darts in the back.  The print of the fabric makes these hardly noticeable.  (Note:  The right side of the fabric showing in this picture is the original facing since this was the original front of the dress.  I eventually opted to remove and discard the facing before sewing the darts.)

Once the bodice fit properly, I stitched the skirt to the bodice.  The skirt was already pleated.  All I had to do was add a few more pleats at the sides for it to fit the bodice.  I was even able to retain the original side seam pockets.

Next was the zipper.  I didn't have an invisible zipper on hand, so I just went with a regular one.  I measured the length of the zipper and marked it with a pin.  I stitched from the bottom of the dress to the pin with a regular length stitch.  From the pin up to the neckline I stitched with a basting stitch.  I then pressed the seam open.

I then carefully centered my zipper face down over the seam and pinned it in place.

On the right side, I stitched my zipper in place, being careful of the pins on the underside.

Once the zipper was all stitched, I used a seam ripper to carefully remove the basting stitches.

To fit the collar, I began by cutting it in half at the center back.

I pinned both sides of the collar to neckline, allowing the fronts to overlap.  When I was happy with the placement, I marked with an ink pin where I should cut them.

This is where I got tired and zoned out on taking progress pictures...oops!  To sum it up, the edge of the collar that attaches to the neckline is actually cut on a straight line.  When you sew the straight edge to the curve of the neckline it makes the collar stand up and roll a bit as you can see in finished dress.  I overlapped the front of the collar pieces, hand stitched them in place and added three small buttons. The back of the collar pieces were cut to a point and finished with the excess bias trim.

I retained the original sleeve detail.  All I did was shorten them by cutting the excess from the top of the sleeves while fitting them to the new armholes.

Once my sleeves were attached, I decided to re-hem the dress.  The only thing left to do was to add a skinny belt!  Thanks for sticking with me to the end!

I like to link to these great parties!