Hurricane Dress

As the owners of one of very few houses in my vicinity with electricity, my family and I have been busy this week. However, I did occasionally manage to steal away from our constant company to work on a new dress.

I love, love, love this fabric. It’s a novelty fabric that alternates white and dull metallic. The white is almost certainly wool, judging from the smell when it’s wet. The fabric reminds me of the Prada fall 07 collection. When I saw this collection in a store way back when, I was SO JEALOUS that the Prada people can get cool fabric specially milled for them. I’m still jealous of that ability, of course, but happy that I could get some similar fabric for me. I bought it as a remnant from a place that sells mill ends.

I frankenpatterned 2 patterns from the book Home Couture by Machiko Kayaki. The collar is a bias tube. I know that I cut it properly, but somehow there’s a fold at the center front. However, the more I looked at it, the more I like the fold there, so I did not try to fix it. The only thing I can think of that might have caused the fold is that the fabric is a twill weave, and I know that sometimes the grain is funny on twill. That might have something to do with it. So anyway, when you’re looking at the pictures, be aware that the fold in the collar was unplanned, but appreciated.

One change that I made is to take the darts and make them curve slightly inward at the waist. I think they look more fashionable that way. The only reason that I could do this is because the wool fabric is very forgiving, and will press into pretty much any shape I want. I don’t think this would have worked at all on, say, a shirting cotton.

Here’s how I changed the dart so it curves. I moved the ends of the dart 1/2″ toward the side, and the middle 1/2″ toward the center. This causes the 2 sides of the dart to be unequal lengths, so it can only be done with very forgiving fabrics.

back view

side view

here’s a closeup of the fabric where the gold color and the white meet.

curved front dart

collar detail

shoulder detail

curved back dart

silk charmeuse lining

Prada Fall 07 dress made from a similar fabric to mine. Image from style.com.

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