the Intaglio Dress

   So when you have more patterns than you know what to do with, where do you start? Ballgowns or bathing suits? The appeal of any particular design relative to the others kept waning and waxing depending almost entirely on whether I was working on it or not, but eventually I realized that I kept coming back to this dress from 1930.  After taking a closer look, I began to realize why.

   Like many others, it has lovely Art Deco lines and delicate details, but it's also a very versatile design. The seaming offers so much potential for beautiful color blocking, while the frillier elements are easily removed for a more toned-down look. It could be dressed up with bright silks or dressed down with neutral wools. The long undersleeves make it well suited for cold weather, while the epaulette oversleeves on their own would be perfect on a light summer dress. The scooped bust and hip yokes evoke that iconic Roaring 20s drop-waisted style while simultaneously expressing the fashion shift of the time toward a more fitted silhouette (with the help of a discreet waist seam and side closure).  It has a little bit of everything without losing itself, and remains a very wearable small piece of history.

   This means I have a bit of a problem. I need to sew this pattern up to be able to test it out and fill in the sparse original instructions, but with so many possibilities, how could I make just one dress? Indecision, thy name is 'Intaglio.' The solution that I've settled on is borderline masochistic. 

   So it begins...

Origins

    Over the last few years, I've collected a treasure trove of rare, public-domain sewing patterns from the early 20th century.  Roaring 20s evening dresses, Great Depression day dresses, bygone beachwear, 3-piece suits, and a flapper's ransom in undergarments. The only hitch is that the maps to this particular treasure trove look like this.

Oh, yeah. This is gonna go great.

Circa 1930

...Also, all of the (minimal) instructions are written in a language that I don't even begin to speak, often featuring terminology that hasn't been used in living memory, in an antiquated Blackletter script where all of the letters look like other letters...except when they inexplicably don't.

What could possibly go wrong?


But I'm nothing if not a stubborn cuss, and these patterns are just too lovely to leave unused in old, disintegrating sewing magazines. So I'm biting the bullet, mixing the metaphors, and digitizing the ever living hell out of this ephemera. 

This blog is intended to provide updates on this project. As it progresses, the patterns will be made available for purchase in my Etsy shop with more in-depth instructions and licensed for limited commercial use (meaning that you have full permission to sell any garments you make from them, provided you aren't sewing them on an industrial-level production scale). 

So yes, this is yet another vintage sewing blog that's also kinda trying to sell you something! But even if you don't sew a stitch and just happen to love 1920s and 1930s -era fashion, take a peek now and again to see some of the beautiful original illustrations, along with the occasional sewing projects made from them.