The Making of My Strapless Lolita Dress
To start you off, I have had the slip that inspired this design for over ten years. It came to me via my dad via Bunny Bilson, a little tiny lady who lived in the White Mountains and at one point in time formed a sweet friendship with my--at the time--teenaged father. She was a ridiculously bad ass woman under five feet tall. After she died in 1993 my dad bought her house and everything inside of it--which is what she had wanted-- and all of her clothing became mine. Most of the textiles deteriorated at a single finger tip tough, but a few pieces had held up to the tests of mothballs and time quite well. Here is the story of one of the tougher items in the bunch.
Part #1
Nice to Meet You
Circa late 40's-early 50s.
Simple and just right in every way.
Semi-sheer cotton, boned bustier, elastic paneling, metal side zipper.
And of course it also has very pointy coned boob cups which was in vogue at the time.
(I have them pinned flat in the above photos.)
Part # 2
The Muslin
Created July 2019
After painstakingly seam ripping this prized slip into pieces I preserved them in the form of a paper pattern. I kept this unadjusted version so I have the ability to exactly replicate the original if if I want to (it makes me feel just a little less heart broken about ripping apart the real thing). But now comes the fun part: designing and creating the dress inspired by this slip, not just recreating the slip.
Here is the very simple drawing of changes I wanted make to the original
Lolita style skirt
Welt pockets
Flatter cups
Exposed back zip
Upper edge detailing
Adjusting the cups definitely took the most revisions, but finally they looked right.
I love the way a marked up muslin looks.
But then comes the worst part.
The sometime gun-wrenching bit.
You rip apart the muslin, seam ripping all seams being sure not the stretch anything knit or tear anything woven. Muslins should come apart pretty easily as they should mostly be sewn with a basting stitch.
Making sure to transfer the relevant markings, use the muslin pieces to create your final paper pattern.
Once you've got your pattern completed the fun start all over again.
Except this time you'll be working with your final material.
So it's time to put that sharpie and seam ripper away.
Part #3
Nice to Meet You, Silky
Created July 2019
I chose a dusky purplish-gray silk that I fund at Kats Exclusive Fabric located in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Kat's is one of my all time favorite fabric stores. From the outside it looks small, but oddly intimidating as you have to ring a doorbell and it always looks closed. But their selection is insanely gorgeous, and the store is bigger than it looks boasting three stories of textiles.
The welt pocket turned out just as I had pictured.
The inside big of the pocket is attached at the waistline so that the weight of anything in the pocket won't reduce the fullness of the skirt. The weight hangs directly from the structured waistline.
The historical context in which women's clothing does not have functional--if any--pockets is information for another day. But suffice it to say I take pockets very seriously, particularly in womenswear.
Voila!
Excuse the sweat spot.
It's hot in NYC in the summer.
Showing off that nice exposed zipper // a nice akimbo stance.
I couldn't be any happier with this thing. Though I anticipate much frustration scaling up those boob cups if anybody wants to order one in a not-Kelsey size.
