I love 1950s dresses. Who doesn’t? It’s all those petticoats. Dior and the post war new look. They are my fridge-spiration. Especially the McCalls pattern 3489. It’s clearly a spring/easter number. Check out that basket of daffodils.

I want the McCalls 3489 to be my next personal project. If you look closely, It’s in fact a dress and skirt combo. The separation of the bodice and skirt is concealed with a matching belt. Another feature of this pattern is it the slight draped cowl at the neckline. I think I’ll make it in that exact shade of yellow and wear it with a lovely pair of nude peep toes.

My current project is altering an original 1950s red wool felt dress. It needs a new lining, a bust adjustment and the hooks & eyes need replacement. I bought the dress from Rokit Vintage London. Amazingly- there is not a single moth hole anywhere on this dress. According to a friend who used to work for Rokit, a lot of Rokit stock comes from Canada.

I think this dress owes it longevity to the fact it’s lining needed replacing at one point. There are clear signs the lining was chopped out and never replaced. It was custom made. There is a small label in the back neckline that says ‘handmade by Edith’.

Since I needed to make this dress a new lining, I took this as an opportunity to make a new pattern. I traced the dress on the flat with muslin and a pencil. I created a flat pattern and then made it up in some red cotton to check against the dress. The intention being that the red cotton toile will work as the finished lining. It also serves the dual process of being a toile for a later copy of this dress. I really adore the flowing, clean lines of this dress that are evident in the trace pattern.

Thankfully, good friends and Me-naquin (my mannequin) make fitting adjustments easy. Looking forward to completing the renovations to this dress.