Lavinia's Sweetheart Dress

So, I watched the entire season 2 of Downton Abbey yesterday and got inspired to get Dressing Downton back up and running again! Today's dress is a lovely black ensemble worn by Lavinia.

It features a sweetheart neckline and cute little shear sleeves.

It's fitted to the hips and has a gathered, layered skirt. In this shot, it looks like the fabric has some kind of metallic print on it. What a LBD!

While watching, I was struck by this dress' similarity to Sewaholic's latest pattern- The Cambie dress! The great thing about this pattern is that you could make it as fancy or simple as you like!

Edwardian Millinery Adventures

I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some lovely millinery adventures when I made Mary's Garden Party dress.

Mary wears two hats with this dress. One at the flower show and this one at the garden party. It has an asymmetrical brim, some decorative ribbon and felt flowers.

I picked up this hat for $15 at Charming Charlie. I really liked the asymmetric brim and it was perfect for retrimming.

The original decorations were lightly hot glued on and came off easily.

Next, I hot glued on my own ribbon.

Then I made my own felt flowers using Gertie's tutorial. I made one from 2" wide, one from 1 1/2" wide, two from 1" wide, and four from 1/2" wide (two from shorter length and two from longer).

There wasn't any particular pattern to my arrangement. I just kept moving them around till I liked them.

The roses were super easy to make. I'm usually terrible at this kind of thing but I was really happy with them.

Lady Mary's Garden Party Dress

Happy Easter! Today I premiered my version of Lady Mary's garden party dress!

I used Vogue 8648 as a starting point and then drafted away. I really wanted to capture all of the different directions of the stripes so I changed a lot! Here's what I did:

• Raised the neckline of the front
• Drafted the waist band on to the skirt
• Lengthened the skirt
• Changed the shape of the skirt from pencil to more aline
• Drafted the back bodice from 4 pieces to 2
• Moved the zipper from the center back to the side
• Made the sleeves less poofy
• Raised the back neckline
• FBA
• Added some extra space by the hips
• Adjusted the cutting layout so that my stripes lined up with Mary's dress
• back-all cut on the bias
• center front bodice-horizontal
• sleeves-horizontal
• rest of front- vertical

The only pieces that I ended up cutting straight from the original were the bodice side front and the sleeves. But I really wanted mine just like Mary's so I put in the extra effort.

 

I also bought a cloche type hat and retrimmed it to be like hers! It will be getting it's own post later this week.

I was able to use a piece of my great-grandma's lace, which was really cool!  It's not in perfect condition but it was perfect for this dress.

A better shot of the hat.

It was very pretty out today and just lovely weather for this dress.

Hey look! Matching chevrons! :)

The dress came out a bit big in the waist has more ease at the waist to give a more period shape and is therefore very comfortable and good for days when I pig out get served lunch at 12 pm and then again at 2 pm. I just wish my Astorias were here! And I need a pair of crochet gloves. It would have been perfect then.

Dressing Downton: Modern Mary

We all want a bit of Downton Abbey in our wardrobes so after posting some inspiration for adding some Downton flavor to your wardrobe, I took up the challenge of working my latest Dressing Downton piece into a modern look.

Tada! I made a rather more reproduction type piece but opted to style it modern.

You can find this costume's Dressing Downton post here.

I paired this skirt with a modern white t-shirt.

It has an almost lace like print (I guess you could call it) that is translucent and a black lace pattern printed on the front. I really wanted to capture the romantic feel of the original outfit.

I ended up making this skirt using a self drafted half circle skirt pattern. There's only one seam which I placed in the back. It closes with snaps and hooks and eyes. I made self fabric covered buttons that are purely decorative.

The back doesn't hang quite as nicely as I'd like but I'm sure Mary has on a slip and petticoat under hers.

Oh and this is so fun to wear! I do need more of these long half circle skirts!

I also envision this with a period blouse or styled as a 40s evening look! They too had long swooshy skirts. And the color is just so yummy!

Dressing Downton Modern

Downton Abbey is full to the brim with lovely costume inspiration! I've been focusing on more reproduction type projects but what if you're looking more for everyday type looks? Let's look at some ways you can bring that inspiration into a more modern wardrobe.

Long skirts were very in during this period, though the length came up towards the end of season 2. Love a great skirt from the show? Shorten the hem to more modern length for an instantly wearable look. Keep the interesting details like the buttons on the back of Mary's skirt or the matching belt on Isobel's. For a more flowy skirt, try a half circle skirt. For a slimmer look, go with an a-line.



Sometimes you'll get lucky and find a modern pattern with similar lines.

Vogue 8648 would be a great starting point for Mary's garden party dress! I'd start with the yellow version and add details. Cut the pieces so the stripes line up with Mary's (or somehow interesting), cut the waist pieces in a darker solid for a belt look and add cuffs to the sleeves. Lace trim around the neck for that finishing touch.



Fallen in love with a great jacket? There are a couple of options here. A lot of jackets from the show would look great with jeans! For a more modern look focus in one one detail-pockets, a unique closure, or a great color and apply it to a modern cut jacket.

Vogue 8333 is a great place to start. It has classic lines but the little side detail makes it special. Change the collar, closures or color.

Vouge 8621 is a much more modern pattern but still captures that spirit of specialness all of the Edwardian jackets from this show have. This is a great option to capture a color that's been calling your name.

Don't forget to think outside of the box. Wouldn't Mary's riding jacket make a great coat dress?

McCall's 6279 would fit the bill.

I feel like a lot of the blouses would be very wearable with jeans or a modern skirt.

I've got many more ideas, but this is getting long so I'm thinking of doing a series of posts on this topic. So please post questions, requests and ideas!

Dressing Downton: Edith's and Sybil's How did that get there? Blouse

My latest Dressing Downton project has been to reproduce this lovely blouse worn by Sybil:

And Edith:

   

I used a lovely watercolor print for the main fabric and a lavender fabric for the cuff and collar detail.

I took my styling cue from Edith and paired it with a high waisted black pencil skirt. This was partially because it was a bit short to wear with pants but also because the shape was horribly unflattering when untucked.

Can you say boxy? So not flattering on my body shape. Tucking in is a must!

I drafted this from Colette Pattern's Sorbetto and Butterick 5559 (sleeves). I also drafted the contrast pieces. I saved myself from any facing/hemming by sewing the contrast on right side of contrast to wrong side of fabric and then flipping it to the outside. I pressed the seam allowance on the other edge of the contrast so all I had to do was press the sewn seam and slip stitch the floppy edge down. Easy and pretty.

I suspect this blouse would have been more flattering with underarm gussets so there wouldn't be so much fabric hanging around. I think I'll end up taking in the sides of the blouse near the waist to give a more flattering shape. It won't be as true to the original but that's ok with me.

Dressing Downton: Deconstructing an Outfit

Trying to figure out what's going on in a costume can be pretty tricky. If you're not lucky enough to live someplace that the Downton Abbey costumes are touring, you'll have to rely on other techniques.

You'll want to start by finding lots of pictures. Watching on tv can be helpful but it's nice to have a still image to look at. If you can't find a good picture online, you can take your own screen caps or check out this website.

Things to look for:

• full length shots
• front shots
• back shots
• side views
• detail shots
• shots where the garment is moving
• officially released shots

The piece I'm looking at today is the green skirt. I can tell it's ankle lenght with a belt and has a rather deep, handstitched hem. It's also a very different shape than the skirt Edith is wearing. It's much more aline than pencil.

Movement shots can help you determine a bit more about the fabric used in the garment. This one has lovely movement. This shot also has a nice crisp shot of the belt and buckle. The belt is exactly the right length (no room for post dinner expansion!) and has a square buckle with and oval hole. I don't see a prong. It doesn't look to me like a self-fabric belt but it could be a nice green leather.

This picture is not a good one to use because it's very dark and we can't see much of the skirt.

 

Backs of garments are the most difficult shots to find. This one is has loads of outfit details available. Mary's skirt has 6 buttons on the back. I suspect they are decorative as I don't see any button holes, but they may be there.

Another difficult thing to discern is closures. Cora's skirt in this shot has an obvious closure in the back that looks like a zipper. It may also be a more period snap placket. If the buttons on the back of Mary's skirt are decorative, her skirt must close on the left. I haven't found a nice shot of the left but front and right side shots show no closures. Edwardian closures are often tricky with each layer having the closures somewhere else to prevent one spot from being too bulky. The other option is to just say forget it and put your closure in where ever you want.

Candid shots are great for giving a different view of things. This skirt looks much less full in this shot. (Plus we get to see how they have perfect hair all the time!)

Official release photos are nice because they are crisp and often much larger than screen shots so you can zoom in and see all the details. Look at all of the types of lace on this blouse! I must learn some heirloom sewing techniques!

You can apply these techniques to any period (or vintage) movie/show that you like.

Lady Mary's Closet: Powers of Fascination Dress

This stunning red dress comes from S1.Ep3 when Evelyn and Mr. Pamuk come to stay. I choose the name from a quote that Matthew says to Evelyn when Mary passes these two suitors over for the exotic foreigner. "We should brush up on our powers of fascination."

This dress features a rather simply shaped sleeveless red underdress with a floral embroidered sheer over layer. It looks kind of sparkley in this photo so maybe there are metalic threads or beads on the top layer. It also has the characteristic between empire and natural waist waistline of the period with a wide red sash. The fun red sleeves are made from a darker sheer red fabric.

This full length shot shows that the sheer overlay goes only part way down the dress and has the same pretty scalloped edge on the bottom as on the neckline. It also looks like there may be a small train. And I do believe the sheer layer is a smidge longer in the back than in the front.

Here's a close up of the front and a bit of the back reflected in the mirror. Looks like the sash may have a bow in the back.

Mary styles it with a midsized necklace with dark (red?) stones and elbow length evening gloves.

I really love this dress! If I do ever get around to making an evening gown for Costume College, this one is a possibility.