Kate Middle-aged-ton?

The above title is a poke at my quickly advancing age and not a poke at the Duchess.

I am a big fan of this black jersey Issa dress worn by Kate Middleton back in April.  I am also a big fan of a lightweight black dress for the summer and have been without one since last year when my stalwart Banana Republic cotton dress finally gave out.  When I first saw this picture, I knew that I had found a suitable replacement but was not going anywhere near the $575.00 price tag of the original.  This is where being able to sew comes in handy (as you all well know).

My first step was to find a pattern that had the same feel as the original.  As you can see, this is a wrap dress with a draping detail at the waistline where the dress wraps.  I settled on Vogue 8631.

While the details are a little different (pleats rather than a draped front, a little more pronounced tulip hemline), I thought this pattern had largely the same easy feel as the Issa dress.  Add in some very lightweight jersey of unknown fiber content (the bolt said only that it was a "designer" fabric, but it had the right feel and weight and was dead cheap, so I took a chance), and I was in business.  (The fabric turned out to be either a poly or a water-based rayon jersey.  I washed a swatch with no shrinkage, so I took the plunge and pre-washed the entire piece of fabric.  It turned out beautifully.  Good think it's so lightweight and air dried in a snap because I didn't want to take the chance of putting the fabric in the dryer).

Here's my interpretation.

So have to work on taking pictures indoors at night.

I absolutely love this dress.  It was simple and straight forward to put together.  Once the pattern was fitted, it only took a weekend, which is lightening speed for me.  There are only four pattern pieces (you cut two of each), and the kimono sleeves further simplify the construction (set-in sleeves are totally my Lex Luthor).

The view from the back is no more visible.

I pretty much followed the instructions for the construction of the dress.  I omitted the pockets and shortened the skirt by 2.5 inches as the dress looked a little out of proportion as drafted.  I considered just doing a narrow hem instead of the bias tape hem finish, but in the end, I went with the bias tape as the tape actually was a little more stable than my fabric, even with the bias taken into account.  It also gave the skirt hem enough weight for it to hang well.

Here's a detail of the bias tape on the inside of the neckline.

 After attaching the bias tape, I fully folded it to the inside of the dress so that it would not show on the outside.  I thought that this gave a nice, clean look to the dress, and it also avoided the problem of the blacks not matching perfectly.

Here's a detail of the front.  See how you can only see the white cat hair at the neckline edge and not the bias tape?

One other change that I made was to stabilize both the shoulder seams and the waistline seam with clear elastic.  I have been using clear elastic to stabilized shoulder seams for a while now, but I got the idea to use it on the waistline, too, after a close examination of a couple of my jersey ready-to-wear dresses.  They had this construction detail as well.

I just serged the elastic in at the same time I serged the skirt to the top.

Same thing with the shoulders.

Even though I was working with a stretch fabric, because the majority of the suggested fabrics were wovens (with a lightweight jersey thrown in at the end), I fitted the pattern as I would for a non-stretch fabric.  This meant cutting my usual size 12 and then doing a full bust adjustment to get the proper ease (despite how the dress looks, there is surprisingly little ease in this dress; only the barest 2 inches of wearing ease).  I think this was the way to go as there is enough ease left in the dress to really let the pleats drape.

The six-million dollar pattern.  We can rebuild it.  We have the technology.  If you can really consider pattern paper and tape technology, that is.

One of these days, I'll chronicle how I do a full-bust adjustment with a pleated front and no darts.  I tried once, and it was so confusing.  Here, I cut off the kimono sleeve prior to making the adjustment.  Instead of a side dart, I rotated the additional fullness equally into the waistline pleats.  I also took a very large tuck (like 2.5 inches) out of the neckline tapering to nothing where I cut off the sleeve so that I could still take advantage of the ease and draping quality of the fabric without any neckline gaping.  When all those adjustments were done, I reattached the sleeve and filled in the resulting gap with tissue.  Does anyone else have to make a consistent adjustment to any wide v-necklines to avoid gaping?  My breastbone is apparently very short.

Oh, and about that neckline, it's fine for casual without anything underneath.  I wore this to a bachelorette party by itself with no gaping and no accidental flashing.  But for work, I have to wear a camisole underneath (see the pictures above; I think it looks kind of Edwardian, personally).

Here we are on the hanger.  The kitchen gets some great light in the afternoon, and you can see the front details well here.  You can even see the big, white cat hair on the skirt if you look carefully enough.

So, because of the mild summer we've been having, my sewing room has stayed largely inhabitable instead of making its usual annual transition into the 7th layer of Hell.  So, there's been a lot of sewing going on.  I've also completed Simplicity 2176 and am about 2/3 of the way finished with a modified version of Vogue 8615. 

I'll have the post up about the Simplicity pattern in another day or two, but here's a preview of the Vogue.

We're in the low-80s right now, so pretty temperate compared to other parts of the country, but the upstairs just traps the heat.  Right now the skirt is just basted on, as is the back seam.  I've used a heavy double-knit, so I was testing to see if I could get away leaving out the zipper, and it slips on just fine.  I still have to hem the sleeves and take several inches off the skirt hem.  I also need to draft and cut facings for the neckline as I neither need (nor want) to line this dress.  I think I can get this done in a couple of chunks in the morning over the weekend and hope to have this nearly completed this week.  My goodness.  The first sewing for fall.  Where has this year gone?