1909 Evening Dress - Janet Arnold (1st try)

I have been wanting for long to try and use Janet Arnold's book to make the "1909/1910 Evening Dress from the London Museum" (in "Patterns of Fashion 2 - c. 1860-1940").

I knew I making an attempt at something really hard for me, because the dress which is patterned is a small size, so I would have to make a lot of modifications to do, but I really wanted to try...
Well, now I think I shouldn't have ... It made me completly crazy and after hours of work, I decided to stop the project for the moment.



This is the beautiful drawing of the dress by J.Arnold.


It's a dress for an approximately 74cm (29") waist corseted women, so quite far from my measurments...

This is how the pattern looks like into the book.

The first step was to understand what all the parts were for and how they would match the bodice lining.

It took me some time but finally I went trough  with the great help of a friend of mine.





I used a printer to enlarge all the parts once (x800% considering the 1/8 scale of the book) and then I tried to ajust the underbodice parts. That's when my nightmare began ...
I knew what to do and how to do it, but nothing worked as planned so I stopped everything and tried something else, using the brassiere pattern of Festive Attire and after a long fight, the underbodice was done !

The next step was the drapped bodice and the sleeves parts.

Drapped bodice / undersleeve

As the drapped bodice is a round drapped part, it was quite easy to adjust. I added 1,5" on the center back (red line) and 3" on the back (red line).

That was a different kettle of fish with undersleeve part : as you can see I made 5 adjustements and was still not happy of the results.

Front skirt

So I decided to put the whole part above the waistline appart and started the skirt adjustements, far easier to me.

I only added a little bit in centers (front and back) and sides seams and I moved the front dart of 1", and a priori it's looked fine.



I say "a priori" because I was so dispirited that I didn't try to make a mokeup of the skirt...

Finaly, after 2 weeks of a long work on this dress, I gave up... I don't need this dress for the moment (until September) so I will try again in a few months, I haven't said my last word !!  

I still have a lot to learn about patience...