Irene Part One
I can’t help it, I love the 60’s.
Many years ago, when I was in high school, I found myself watching one of Doris Day and Rock Hudson's trio of movies; the one with the mistaken identity and all the zany mixups before they end up together in wedded bliss. (After looking it up, I narrowed it down to “Lover Come Back.”) The film itself didn't make much of an impression on me (other than the fact that “Down With Love,” that movie with Renee Zellweger, suddenly made a lot more sense) but one of Doris Day's gowns did.
©Universal Pictures
©Universal Pictures
©Universal Pictures
It appears to be a sheath dress in a sort of gold colour with a short beaded sweater over it. In the photo from the wardrobe test it's full length, but in my memory of the movie it was closer to a cocktail length. I believe she wears it in the scene where she is about to give in to Rock's manly wiles but at the last minute she discovers the truth and decides to mess with his head or get mad and throw him out or something.
The dress was designed by Irene Lentz, a designer who dressed many of the prominent film stars of the 1930's, 40's and 50's, and as far as I can tell, she's the only costumer credited on the film, though she is only credited for Miss Day's gown so I can't say who designed and assembled the rest of the costumes for the film. However, this is the only dress I'm really looking at so it will suffice to credit my inspiration solely to Irene, as she was known professionally.
The first appearances of this dress in my sketchbook came in the form of ideas for a production of Taming of the Shrew set in the 1960's (have I mentioned that I'm a nerd?) I imagined that this would be a good look for Katherine in the final scene, when she and Petruchio have returned for Bianca's wedding and she gives that speech which can be very hard for a modern audience to listen to. I'm not sure which of the two sketches I found is the earlier, though I think it may be the shorter version, but the source of my inspiration can be easily seen in both of them.
I did add a few touches of my own though. The first, which can be seen in both drawings, is the different neckline in the back. I changed it to a deep 'v' with an added piece which would hang from the shoulders (henceforth to be known as a sash as that is what I call all random bits that hang off of my dresses for which I cannot think of a better word). I also always imagined the beading along the hem of the over bodice as being more teardrop shaped than round (admittedly, in part because of my faulty memory of something I saw once in a movie). I'm pretty sure the idea of lengthening the dress and adding the train and the bow came later, though I can't tell you where the idea came from; perhaps it was simply a stroke of genius. One of my beliefs in life is that the big bow is a design element which is best used sparingly, but for this dress I kind of liked it and it seemed to work; there was something about it which fit well with the 60's aesthetic.
When I decided that I wanted to make this dress, I opted to go with the longer version as the gathering and train in the back provided a bit more of a challenge.
I did a nice, clean final drawing so it’s all official and everything.
The first step, was to alter the front of my basic block by rotating the shoulder dart into an underarm dart and adding the skirt before drawing in the new neckline and armholes. For the first pass at the back, I redrew the neckline and armholes and added the skirt onto the block then split the back into two pieces along a line that would be slightly below the knee if my Judy had legs. I flared the upper back piece along the side seam and the centre back and left the lower back as it was.
I also decided to artificially elongate the skirt. In most of my drawings, my figures have somewhat disproportionately long legs which means when I put them on a Judy who has been set at a somewhat normal height, the finished dress sometimes looks a bit squat compared to the original drawing. I look at dresses like Helena or Cordelia and I wish I had given myself a little extra space to stretch them out a bit.
The first mock up was ultimately on the right track, if generally a bit loose. I pinned out a little more on the front darts and extended the back darts up to the neckline before turning my attention to the back of the skirt. While the pattern had generally worked, it was clear that the lower back piece needed to be much narrower to exaggerate the gathering at the back. With these alterations made, I cut another mock up.
For the second mock up, I tried adding the train piece so that I could start working out what shape it needed to be. My first draft of it more or less worked, but it wasn't quite the right shape and looked a bit sad and flat (I mean, why have a train at all if it's only going to be a sad little thing?) I slashed and spread the train to add more fullness as well as lengthened it at the centre back to deepen the curve along the hem and allow it to trail behind the dress a little more.
At this point I also drafted and cut a mock up of the lace over bodice. It's a pretty simple shape so it came together easily, however I did not completely escape over-complicating it as I initially added in the bust dart. Turns out, it's not necessary in something which sits so far away from the body and all it really achieved was a weird bloop on the side, so I removed it from the final pattern. Huzzah for fewer darts!
The sash was also pretty simple and only needed a minor tweak in the centre to make it lay properly.
After once again applying all the various changes I had made and turning my second mock up into a third, I was happy with the pattern and felt that I had pretty much achieved the shape from my drawing.
Final train and lower back patterns.
As for fabric, my choice had been determined early in the process. Both of the fabrics I used had been purchased months ago with the Olivia dress in mind (this was before the whole stained glass fiasco) and had been sitting in the stash waiting for their turn. I had bought them at the same time, always intending to use them together, and there was something about them which always struck me as appropriate for a 60's inspired dress. Between the fabrics and various notions I had in my stash, this dress was tantalizingly close to being created entirely from things I already had, but of course, there was a small snag.
All along, I had been thinking of using some beads I had in my bead stash (yes, lousy beader though I am, I have still managed to accumulate many beads in my travels through life). They were beige coloured, teardrop shaped beads left over from a piece of lamp fringe I had mined for beads for my Titanic dress at school. In my mind, there were many of these perfect little beads, sitting in my bead box, waiting eagerly to be used.
Alas, I was wrong. The beads were indeed there, but I had severely underestimated how many I would need for this dress, tiny though it was.
Ultimately, I had about half as many I would need to complete the dress. I had about a billion little round ones, and I considered alternating them with the teardrops, but sadly, I just didn't like it. I was attached to my original vision and one of the problems with finally realizing ideas you've had in your head for many years is that sometimes compromising on certain details or being open to a different idea can be hard.
At first, I went in search of more of the same beads, but they proved tricky to find. In the decade since the original beaded fringe was purchased, it has gone definitively out of style and is no longer carried by Fabricland, so just buying some more fringe was not an option. The internet, source of anything your wild, depraved little mind can conceive of, was not much help. Most teardrop beads came in variety packs with paltry numbers of five different colours, none of which were the colour I was looking for. I found one company in the US which still sold beaded fringe in what I was pretty sure was the colour I wanted, and I could have ordered some for a reasonable price (even with the exchange rate) but the shipping was prohibitively expensive.
Finished edge with the new beads.
Eventually, I found a listing for five strands of completely different beads, totalling a little over a hundred beads, for a reasonable price in a colour which would probably go nicely with the dress. Given that my dreams of sourcing all the necessary materials from my stash had already been dashed, I bit the bullet and bought the beads. In the end, I'm glad that I did; I really do like the look of the row of uniform little drops and I even like that the more pronounced colour of the new beads stands out a bit more against the blue of the dress.
With the bead quandary solved, it was time to get on with the final build.
