Best of Both Worlds

     In the interim between finished dresses, here are a couple of mock-ups illustrating Intaglio's considerable color-blocking potential (also doubling as something of a preview for the next project). Even without abandoning basic black and white, the entire feel of the dress can be changed completely.

Lesser Variegated Intaglios

Snowblind

    With a finished dress, a fresh shortage of valid excuses against it, and an incipient winter storm threatening to turn the current winter wonderland a little too winter wonderlandy, it became apparent that it was time to quit dragging my feet and actually take a few photographs of my very first Intaglio (the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink version). Without further ado, here is its debut!

Bare Bones

      A fashion illustration isn't always the best way to get a look at the actual construction of a garment- they tend to be more focused on showing the style rather than the substance, expression rather than details. The forest was drawn in 1930 by an unknown artist; now let's take a look at some trees.

   This first set shows the version of the dress depicted in the original illustration, complete with cuffs, collar, and belt. As is typical for both the era's preferred silhouette and modern fashion conventions, the original illustration is noticeably more elongated than the actual garment created by the pattern (fabric choices will also have quite an effect on the overall shape). The lower bodice pieces are gathered or eased along a seam located at the natural waistline.  

      This seam, along with the yokes and side closure, allows for significant fitting adjustments to be made (to varying degrees of historical accuracy). The set-in sleeves are also fitted at the forearm with a dart that apexes at the elbow and opens into a buttoned closure at the wrist.

     The skirt has a fair bit of flare, which should be taken into account when selecting a fabric. Stiffer fabrics will retain this silhouette, while fabrics with a soft hand will drape from the hip yoke into a more sheath-like, fluted shape. This same effect will be mirrored in the epaulette oversleeves, on a smaller scale, although softer fabrics can be interfaced if you wish to preserve the structure.

Two steps forward, one step back

Elementary school math class throwback time! If you take one step backward for every two steps forward, how much longer will it take to walk to your destination than if you just walked normally (assuming the same pace and stride)?

Answer: Pleats.

Also, three time longer, which is why adding basic knife or box pleats will reduce your yardage to 1/3 of the original length. This may be news to no one but me, but it's a handy visualization while I illustrate Intaglio's sewing instructions. There comes a time in almost every sewing project when the directions call for you to do some kind of foldy, fiddly thing and I have to take a moment to try to wrap my mind around the geometry of it, before giving in, forging ahead as per instructions in spite of the doubts, and by some strange sewing alchemy a bound buttonhole emerges. Well, the joke is on me, because now I'm the one making the instructions. It isn't enough to pinch pleats into place, now I have to understand how they work well enough to draw them. And the form that understanding is taking at the moment involves lurching around looking like an escapee from the Ministry of Silly Walks. 

The Intaglio dress itself has actually come together fairly smoothly, other than the initial surprise fabric shortage. I'll be posting about it soon, as well as starting the second one.

Taking a dilemma by the horns

     The solution to too many design possibilities?

Not one... 

                 ...Not two...
                                                              

                                                        ...But three different dresses. Two in silk. Pretty, drapey, slippery, aggravating, want-to-pull-your-hair-out-sewing-it silks. Clearly I've thought this through. 


    My fabric for the first version is a brown herringbone wool. Solid, stable, sensible wool. I ordered extra to account for shrinkage, reviewed recommended wool pre-treating suggestions, ran a trial on a test square with beautiful results, and figured this would be the easy one. HA! Of course the full yardage shrank more than ever anticipated, and felted a little bit out of pure spite. I suppose better now than later. Ordered more to make up the difference, ran it through the same process with a twinge of regret, and we're off again towards a slightly fuzzier winter dress.   

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.