pattern junkie

Party dresses for my alter egos

I guess I've been looking for outside motivation to help me get to the sewing machine lately, because I seem to have gone a little competition-mad.  First I signed up for Pattern Review's Wardrobe Contest (10 coordinating pieces in 2 and a half months), then I jumped on the Wardrobe Refashion bandwagon.

Now Sew Retro has to go and complicate things by announcing their November Party Time Competition.  I won't sign up (repeat to self: "I won't sign up, I won't sign up") because A) I don't think I'll finish the PR contest, as I've only done 2 garments and am in the midst of a big work project and B) I live in Southern California, where wearing anything more formal than lounge pants and flip flops is viewed with suspicion.  I jest -- a little -- but the truth is, I won't be needing loads of flirty dresses for the upcoming party season. 

Still, it's fun to imagine a life that demands a whole fleet of party dresses.  Here are the dresses -- and by extension, the alter egos -- I'm wanting right now: 

Mmm.  Here I'm an absolutely fabulous upper crust fashionista with a dash of bohemian flair.  It's New York in the late 1960s, and I'm dashing across a Central Park West drawing room to deliver a scathing bon mot to Andy Warhol.  Nico and Twiggy may have shorter dresses, but they don't have my wit.

I've had this pattern in my collection for a long time, and I really want to make it -- although it falls squarely into the category of patterns I should avoid at all costs.  I look best in things that emphasize my waist.  Flowy mod 60s-era dresses designed for Twiggy silhouettes generally make me look like a block of cheese.  Witty bon mots generally aren't enough to set off that look.

My next contender would be this one, Vogue 1116:

If I'm Red there, I'm hosting one awesome mid-70s party for the block.  So confident, so assured!  I've whipped up 300 canapes from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and styled my hair perfectly, despite having misplaced one of my feet.  Plus, I'm wearing an actual "hostess dress," a concept in dressing that should definitely make a comeback.  (If I'm Blue?  Then I'm in a fern bar, about to give a no-good man a piece of my mind.)

I've had Vogue 1116 for a while and will make it one of these days -- it looks like a blast to wear.  The only thing that scares me?  That's gotta be one monster hem.

Here's another fantasy party dress, Vogue 1227, found on the Vintage Pattern Wiki:

 

Clearly I'm an international superspy, perhaps even James Bond's nemesis.  It's a cocktail party in Monaco, and this slinky little number doesn't have a hiding place for guns and secret documents -- that's what my poufy hair and chignon are for, silly goose.

Finally, here's a pattern from my etsy shop, McCall's 9619:

This pattern fascinates me: it's from 1953, and so different from the big skirted dresses we associate with that time.  Toreador pants, a cummerbund, a ruffled blouse -- what party demands this outfit?  If I'm wearing this, I must be in Pamplona at the running of the bulls -- although with that wasp waist, I'm certainly not eating anything.

What are your fantasy party dresses?

In Defense of Vogue 1134

The new Vogues came out a few weeks ago.  For the most part, I...yawn.  Oh, what was I saying?  Yes, the new Vogues.  Ho hum for the most part, with a few standouts and and a few duds.  My favorite head-scratcher was this Chado Ralph Rucci number that one Pattern Review forum member quite accurately pegged as perfect if you needed to outfit your own personal Mini-Me:

One of my personal faves?  Vogue 1134, which got pretty roundly thumbed-downed at Gertie's awesome blog and at the Pattern Review Message Board.  Take a look at it:

Dear God.  What a disaster!  The model looks wide as a truck and rather unhappy about that fact.  The fit around her bust is baggy -- really, it makes her head look sideshow circus small.  And none of this is helped by the fact that someone in the Vogue hierarchy decreed that this dress should be made out of flowered fabric ripped off of a discarded sofa.  Those flowers, I might add, are a specific shade of mustard yellow and green that a high school friend and I termed "puner" for its nausea inducing power.  Note further that the flowers on the fabric run in a pattern as crazymaking as the yellow wallpaper in the Charlotte Perkins Gilman story. 

So how could I like this dress?  It doesn't even touch any of my usual weak spots, like big ol' floppy collars!

Well, take a look at the line drawing for starters:

It's actually pretty, with the gathers and the rounded waistline.  Sort of a 1930s feel to my non-fashion historian mind.  Imagine it cut to the knee and made in a fabric that wasn't a) puner, b) reminiscent of furniture or c) crazymaking -- perhaps an emerald green silk.  

I think this is the ugly duckling with potential -- what do you think?

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE NIPON WOMEN

The first rule of Fight Club is...YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE NIPON WOMEN.

The second rule of Fight Club is...YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE NIPON WOMEN.

Behold Vogue 2640 by Albert Nipon:

 

These two are late 80s "XRay Women" straight out of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, don't you think?  But don't let the refined setting (a tony luncheon club on the Upper West Side, perhaps?) fool you.  Arms akimbo, they stand ready to drive a bony elbow into your side...or, if things get really serious, to do some damage with those pointy stiletto heels.

Waif-thin or not, don't underestimate these women.  They're tough.  Sure, their Master of the Universe husbands may trade millions daily on the stock market, but these Nipon women know that's nothing.  After all, this is a pattern that calls for seven rows of topstitching!  SEVEN ROWS.  If that doesn't take nerves of steel, I don't know what does.