At first, my dress wasn't going to be a long term project. I have known for some time that when I got around to getting married, I would base my dress design on the fashions of the Edwardian era. I have always loved that era of fashion, specifically 1909. Yes, that is pretty specific, I know. I didn't mean to pick a single year, but I have just found that when I am leafing through books of old fashion plates or museum articles, every time I find a dress that jumps out to me, I check the date and there you have it. 1909.
Of course my first stop in my search for a dress design was the Kyoto Fashion book, along with my other fashion resource books. I have many dog eared pages in those books, including some that I mentally bookmarked as possible wedding dresses, but when I went back to them none of the photos were quite "it".
My next stop was a Google image search for "Edwardian Evening Gown". There, I found about a dozen gowns that I really liked one or more elements of. In reviewing my bookmarks, I found another common thread: Queen Maud of Norway. I don't know how I had never heard of her before, but she rocked the fashion something fierce. Don't take my word for it, go to do a search now and see for yourself. She was amazing.
It was time to get a second set of eyes, so I went over my finalists with my daughter. There was one dress in particular that stood out to both of us - an ivory and black court dress:
Next, it was time to play a game of "what exactly do I love about this dress?" For me, it was the line of the skirt. I liked the heavy embroidery around the edges since it didn't detract from the smooth columnar line of the upper skirt. I also am a big sucker for asymmetrical design, which this dress definitely has. The tulle under petticoat peeking out is a great contrast to the heavy satin of the dress. I also liked the black tulle drape that seems to float down the dress from the waistband.
What did I not love about the dress? It's ivory/white. These are not my colors. It's embroidered. That is not my strength, nor would that fit in my timeline. Not. Gonna. Happen. Then, of course, there was the complete lack of photos of the front of that dress. I tried. They don't exist.
Given that I was never going to find a border print fabric which would work for this design and that the dress was a mystery from the side seams forward, I kept looking - but always came back to this one. Of course that means something, so I started brainstorming what to do about these two issues.
First, the front. That really isn't a huge deal. Incorporating a front design based on the back of a dress isn't difficult as long as you keep the design elements so that there isn't a clear jump in the design. Since the back of this dress showed a surplice style bodice, I just brought that to the front and made the bodice back smooth. Then there was the issue of how to get that edging detail without going insane or purchasing an embroidery machine. I had to walk away for a few days there in order to get perspective - then I thought of it. Lace. The flowers on the extant dress certainly do resemble appliqued lace, and that is not nearly as time consuming as embroidery would be.
My next stop was Etsy, to find rayon lace which I could get in a large batch and would emulate the swirls and scallops of the Art Nouveau era. The more I searched, the more I kept really liking styles that reminded me of plumage - which then changed how I was picturing that train. It wasn't a train, it was a peacock's tail. Well, hello there, color idea. I started to get a clear idea in my brain of what the finished dress would look like-
A silk satin or taffeta in a gold/bronze with a hint of green. Antiqued lace appliques, heavily applied at the train and hem, then tapering up the dress. Glass beads in shades of blue, green, and gold on the lace for a color accent.
Now that I had a good image in my brain, I set pencil to paper and sketched out my dress design:
As you can see, I made some pretty significant changes from the inspiration gown. The most significant of those changes was to make the bodice back relatively plain, another was to shorted the court train by about half. I wanted the focus for the back of the dress to be the train, and I didn't want to trip so that had to be shortened to a manageable length.
I wanted to get my lace before the main fabric, since there is a much wider variety of fabric colors than lace colors. In searching for "peacock lace", I found a fantastic Etsy seller based out of Utah (amazing Cathy can be contacted here) that had several laces which would do perfectly for my dress. I contacted her to confirm she could fulfill an order of the size I'd need, and she got right back to me to confirm. We worked out the details, and I ordered these laces:
Amazing, right? That's ten yards of scalloped lace (top left corner), two yards of "peacock eye" lace (across the middle, twelve sets of "lace collars" that I call swirls/fronds/nautili (center-ish) and a few extra flourish bits thrown in for good measure.
Now that I had my lace, it was time for silk and bead shopping. My silk I found at Mill End Fabrics, which is my go-to place for unique and high quality textiles. My beads I found at Shipwreck Beads , which is an amazing black hole of creative potential in Olympia, Washington. Yes, they have an Etsy shop and yes you should go there.
Design finished, all of the bits acquired, I was ready to get to cutting. Here is my lovely shot of All My Wedding Dress Bits:
Next up: From Design to Dress.
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