Mods on Mods

Lately I’ve been making myself things like pencil skirts and wiggle dresses, but I decided I’d like to try some more ‘youthful’ Mod looks. Looking through my pattern stash I decided to try making a ‘muslin’ (a taffeta?) of Simplicity 6936. I liked the cut and specifically view 2.

Here is my mock up in taffeta (I wanted a stiffer fabric than muslin to test since I was going to be making the final version in brocade).

This is why I should make test garments for myself more often. The easiest (if not the least time consuming) way I’ve found to self-fit. Accoring to the pattern, this dress should end up too small on me. Boy was that inaccurate! I ended up taking close to 4″ out of the waist length on this dress, which even for a short waisted person seems like a lot. I’m not sure who the original patten was designed for, but she has a very long torso!

Once I’d worked out the base pattern mods, I cut out and assembled the final fabric – a black and pink brocade with cherry trees. Unfortunately the selection of brocades at my local fabric shop was limited and this differed from my original vision, but it grew on me and worked with the feeling I was after. Especially once I added a giant bow.

The dress was made for a themed landmark birthday party for me, and I decided to go all out. I was inspired by this 1960s Mary Quant dress.

There’s something so 60s and fun about this hemline ‘detail’. For my version I added a wide contrast hem in hot pink taffeta. The bow is stylized and made up of several pieces so that I could control the precise and flattened look. It’s tacked on separately so I can theoretically remove it later if I want to. A collar in the same fabric provided a bit of counterbalance and detail. I also made the back neckline into a V shape to balance the higher front neckline, and to make it a bit cooler to wear.

Further notes: The brocade is a heavier weight than the taffeta, which resulted in the bustline on the finished garment flattening my chest a little. For the next version, I made sure to cut the princess lines with a larger curve over the bust to correct this issue.

After all of that fitting, and with my best friend’s birthday a mere 10 days after mine, I made it up again, this time in a medium weight suiting for a ‘little black dress’ with a twist. The theme was black and gold, and I found this inspiration image:

And then while searching through my stash of fancy trims I found this:

Vintage gold trim that is essentially woven like horsehair braid (used to stiffen skirt hems etc), but made of metal thread wrapped core threads. Perfect for this project!

I thought that given the nature of the trim I would have to hand stitch it on, but found that a wide zig zag in the right colour of thread was hidden quite well by the weave. It did require careful pinning to ensure that it didn’t shift as I was sewing.

The result was pretty much bang on what I’d been going for. I couldn’t get my hair quite as big as the inspiration image though!

Bonus Mod: This 2007 dress I made from 2 brand new old stock pillowcases. The pattern was taken from a vintage 1960s dress I owned at the time. I’m still pretty happy with it, although the fit isn’t perfect on me.

Working within the limitations of the materials meant that there was less flexibility to alter it once I’d cut out the fabric. I’d like to try something like this again with my  extra years of knowledge and experience. In fact, I’ve got a couple of old stock pillowcases in my stash right now…

~Heather