The Halter Dress Does Business Casual

When I made the halter dress from VoNBBS, I shared my worries about it here (backless! gaping sides! oh my!). Well, I tried it with a little jacket, and I'm feeling better about it.

I wore this to work on Friday, and was happy with it. I think the top looks nice peeking out of this red jacket, which is from Anthropologie about 4 or so years ago. I felt very put together in this get-up (though I also felt like I had a dirty little secret, wearing such a racy dress under a work jacket!).

But I think this dress plus jacket/cardigan is a nice idea to get more wear out of other summer dresses as well.

What do you think?

P.S. I'm wearing my new yellow Anthro crinoline under it. As you can see, the pouf is very understated, which I like. But the crinoline length is a little short, in my opinion. I might need to add some extra layers to it!

The Halter Dress

This dress here is one of the "bonus projects" in Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing - not one of the core fourteen. But VoNBBS devotes a whole four pages to the making of it, so I thought I would include it in my project.

It's a variation of the full, gathered skirt, which I made in taffeta.

Pattern no. 7375 gives two very wearables - this time, a backless halter dress, an indispensable in any warm-weather wardrobe. Vogue chose a 39" silk with a two-way print because it's soft enough for pleasant fullness, opaque enough so you're decent without a bra, and because a pretty print is so much a part of the resort scene. - VoNBBS

Ah yes! The "resort scene," where I spend so much of my time. (Also, why does VoNBBS seem to think that "wearable" and "indispensable" are nouns? Hmph.)

The fabric is a silk/cotton blend from Mood, which I lined with cotton batiste.

So, techniques-wise, I made this a lot easier on myself than the taffeta skirt. I used minimal tailor's tacks, since I already had an idea of the pattern. I did the hem and gathering by machine. I don't think I did any hand basting - yay! It just wasn't necessary with this fabric. But this dress was interesting in its construction. It has two darts at the top of each halter piece - strange, since otherwise it is so unstructured.

Here it is in all its backless glory:

Don't laugh at me, but I don't think I would wear this out of the apartment. Yes, apparently I will post pictures of it on the internet, but I will not wear it outside. Don't worry, the irony is not lost on me. I wonder if it would it be defeating the purpose to wear it with a jacket. Can't you just see it with a little velveteen jacket? (Gawd, I'm starting to sound like VoNBBS!)

I'm also contemplating removing the halter portion and just making it a skirt. The design is, well . . . not very well thought-out in my opinion. A gathered, blouson-style backless halter? That's just asking for a wardrobe malfunction! Unless I stand up stick straight (which, I know, I should anyway), the sides of the front begin to gape.

It's kind of hard to believe this pattern is from 1952, isn't it? It just seems a little racy to me. (Yes, I know I sound like a prude. I just think perhaps the time for backless dresses in my life has passed.)

Oh, but on the bright side. Behold my new shoes!

"The Full, Gathered Skirt"

My fourth finished project from Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing! I was going to make it in cotton gingham, as the book suggested. Then, well . . . I discovered that there is such a thing as silk taffeta gingham. Cotton would no longer suffice.

"A gathered skirt is just about the most useful skirt you could have . . . it's becoming . . . it mixes with all your blouses and sweaters . . . A beginner should make it in about four hours. As you get more experienced, it will take even less time." - VoNBBS

This skirt took me, um, longer than four hours. In fact, my husband turned to me last night and said, "Are you still working on that?" The reason for this was two-fold: 1) I kept messing up. And 2) I was really really good about following the directions. I basted by hand! I made gathering stitches by hand! And - you're not going to believe this - I overcasted all the seam allowances by hand. It was terrible. It took forever.

Here's a view of the inside:

The gathering was the part that kept tripping me up. Seriously, if you're going to gather with taffeta and then baste it to a waistband, I really recommend doing all the basting by hand. Seriously. I basted it to the waistband (the first time) by machine, and it was a sorry sight. The gathers were all uneven and crazy-looking. I had to rip it all out and redo it by hand.

But anyway. This skirt is extremely fun to wear. Because of the stiffness of the taffeta, it stands out as though I were wearing a crinoline.

Besides using a different fabric than the one recommended, I also did my usual alteration of shortening from tea length to knee length. Also, for once I actually had to make a vintage pattern smaller instead of larger. Doris was a wee bit more voluptuous than I, so I took 3 inches out of the waistband pattern piece by slashing and overlapping. I left the skirt piece the same size since it was just going to get gathered anyway.

One thing I've been doing with my VoNBBS projects is to use the same color seam binding on all my hems. This has gotten me to think of the garments as part of an integrated collection. I like it.

Here are inside views of three of the garments, so you can see the seam binding:

VoNBBS closed the instructions for this pattern with the following directives:

"Press skirt on wrong side. Now, turn to right side and - quick! - freshen your makeup, slip into a sweater or blouse - then, your skirt - and show the world what you made - and at such a saving!"

Thanks, VoNBBS! Next up is the "bonus project" from the book - the backless halter dress featured on the pattern envelope above.

Remembrance of Pattern Owners Past

The "full, gathered skirt" pattern (with backless halter dress variation)

I love finding little remnants of the previous owner of a vintage pattern - a receipt, a newspaper clipping, or some handwritten notes. Three of the patterns I own from Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing came from the same owner. (They all came from one estate sale, according to the eBayer who sold them to me.) I've started to feel like I know her in a certain sense.

Let's just say her name was Doris.

Here are the things I know about Doris: She lived in Illinois. She owned at least five of the fourteen patterns from Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing, so I like to think she also owned the book itself. She bought her patterns at a shop called Wieboldt's, where patterns were NOT RETURNABLE, according to a black ink stamp on the envelopes.

According to Wikipedia, Wieboldt's was a chain of department stores in the Chicago area:

Wieboldt Stores, Inc., also known as Wieboldt's, did business as a Chicago general retailer between 1883 and 1986. Wieboldt's was known for their good values, unpretentious merchandise, and multilingual sales staff. The stores were especially popular among ethnic, working-class shoppers who could not afford or did not like to shop at the big downtown department stores. Wieboldt's former slogan was "Where You Buy With Confidence!".

(Yeah, you better be confident, because that pattern is NOT RETURNABLE.)

Doris liked to write fabric suggestions on her pattern envelopes, along with cryptic numbers:

Linen- Red - 4.17 - 22 -1/2 oz.
4.54 White Jersey

She owned the bolero pattern, which had a short-sleeved variation, and she was so bold as to draw in long sleeves in scrawly blue ink right on the illustration. On the back of the envelope, she wrote with a firm hand: Long sleeves.

That Doris knew what she wanted.

Doris, interestingly enough, was a voluptuous lady - for her time. She had 41" hips in an era of 34" hips. When I look at her patterns, I sometimes wonder how she handled that. Did she feel out of place? Was she always on a diet? Or was she proud of her body? (Well, if she was confident enough to buy a non-returnable pattern for a backless halter dress, perhaps there's our answer.)

Anyway, as I'm making the "full, gathered skirt" from VoNBBS, Doris from Illinois has been on my mind often. Next, I'm going to move on to the backless halter dress variation from the same pattern (which is a "bonus" project in VoNBBS). I hope to wear it with the same aplomb that Doris would have.