Dressing for a pregnant weekend in the 1920s - part 1

As I mentioned a while ago, I recently had to pull together outfits for a 1920s themed weekend in the country - not usually a problem, since I already own lots of twenties originals and reproduction clothing, but this time, being nearly 6 months pregnant meant nothing fit! I decided to make two dresses, and managed to borrow a third from a friend who'd been in a similar predicament when she was expecting a while ago (in that case needing a twenties maternity dress for my hen do!). I'll explain here which patterns I used, what I did to adapt them for maternity, and how well I think they worked and what I would do differently another time.

The two I made are based on two original 1920s dresses featured in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 2. I cannot recommend her books enough (and you will find many re-enactors and fashion history buffs say the same), even if you are not into making clothes yourself, the wonderful illustrations of the dresses and detailed descriptions of the originals are fascinating and highly educational. The really exciting thing about the books however is that they include 1/8th scaled patterns of the originals, so theoretically you can scale them up to make reproductions of the originals. Given that this includes classic patterns by some very famous designers, this is hard to resist!

However, Arnold does stress that given that the original dresses the patterns are based on were made for specific women not necessarily of standard size, really you need to use pattern drafting skills to adapt them to your needs. Unfortunately I've never had the chance to learn pattern drafting properly (on the 'things to do' list!), so I picked two dresses whose measurements looked like they would probably fit over my current shape and simply scaled them up with minimal adjustments based on guesswork.

First up is the black and silver dress I mentioned a while ago. This is pattern 27A in the book, and is based on a 1923-25 evening dress in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I ended up changing this quite dramatically which undoubtedly affected how is hung, but in essense it is a straight up and down heavily beaded tunic dress with a scallopped bottom. Unable to afford beaded fabric or the time and skill to add that much decoration itself, I used a layer of patterned silver netting over the crepe back black satin base. This probably made the fabric and drop more stiff than the original would have been. Once cutting and tring it pinned together, I found that the line of the shoulder straps did not work well with a larger maternal bust, so removed the sloped versions in the pattern and replaced them with wide, straight strips of black satin which hung better for me at the moment.

alternate shoulder straps

Finally, to incorporate my bump, I made the whole thing more A-line by adding triangular inserts of extra black satin into each side. My hope is that after pregnancy I'll be able to remove these and sew it up as originally designed and be able to use the dress again.

For decoration, I added lots of diamante and also some flower shaped beads that I bought cheaply at Annie's vintage clothes store in Islington;

They are very pretty, but are apparently originally french grave decorations (the mind boggles!). The store also mentioned that a stylist of Vogue had just bought a load of them for use in a shoot, so I'll have to keep an eye out for that. I wanted to make the dress look more highly decorated, hence using them, and they were a quick and easy way to add beading, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with how well it worked: the black beads merged too much into the dress to be very noticeable, and the ends of the wire I hadn't sealed off properly poked through the fabric and laddered my stockings! Oh well, it was a nice idea...

diamante and beaded detail

And here's how  the finished item looks on a non-pregnant dress mannequin:

And here's the back and side, showing the additional panels added for my bump;

back

Side panels

scalloped edge detail

It is, theoretically, a very simple dress to make, comprising of only two pieces. It's probably a pretty good way place to start with the Janet Arnold patters if you're as inexperienced at pattern drafting as myself.

1920s maternity

My life has been somewhat absorbed of late by two things: moving house and being pregnant! Major life events that really take it out of you, it has to be said. It's meant that my usual vintage obsession has somewhat been dented over the last few months from a combination of busy-ness, tiredness, and frustration with the difficulties of combining vintage clothing with the maternity look.

Don't get me wrong - there are vintage maternity clothes out there - it's just that it's hard to justify investing in good pieces for just a few months. My maternity clothes have been cheap as chips from mainstream fashion shops, mostly bought in the sales for a few quid each. Using vintage accessories has been the best way of keeping vintage part of my look. I have searched and browsed longingly over some lovely vintage maternity pieces though, and at some point I will perhaps blog about them, since at least that would give some use to my browsing!

My current challenge, however, is putting together a 1920s weekend wardrobe that fits (given I'm now nearly 7 months gone) for a weekend away in a couple of weeks. Only one of my original twenties dresses now still fits, so I'm resorting to making a couple of dresses from original twenties patterns and adapting them to my strange shape.

My first test of this was for another twenties event a couple of weeks ago, for which I tried to make a black day dress. It was not an overwhelming sucess, but here's the result;

It's adapted from a 1928 Vintage Vogue pattern I've used a number of times, but the result really had no relationship to the original. My hormone addled brain completely miscalculated and the whole thing ended up far too big, so I ended up adding lots of tucks and pleats, especially around the neckline, to make it even vaguely fit properly. I did wear it for the weekend, somewhat reluctantly, but with a big cardigan over it to hide it's worst sins.

One of the main things I learned from that weekend is that the 1920s style is not flattering for a pregnant lady. It's the style most likely to fit, I suppose, because it isn't as fitted as other eras, but the 1920s look is all based on a straight up and down sillouette, and a pregnant belly gives anything but that look! The worst part is the low waist line. Whilst empire line clothes gathered under the bust are quite pretty and flattering for the pregnant figure, the low twenties waistline just makes you feel like you have a huge beer belly. Not a good look!

So I've decided to give up on this version of the dress, and have cut it up for my next attempt. This time I'm going for a tunic style that doesn't have any distinct waistline at all, in the hopes it'll skim over my bump a bit more attractively. It is adapted from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 2 (pattern 27a). This is my first attempt at using one of her patterns, but it is theoretically quite a simple one. I am however adding side panels to make room for my bump, so it'll be interesting to see how that works; but I'm trying to make it in such a way that I can reconstruct it and wear again after pregnancy.

This time it's an evening dress, so the black cloth from the day dress is being used as the lining, covered by silver lame lace net. Then I'm adding a lot of diamante;
 

The diamante was a challenge, but does sparkle so prettily;

So far I have tried the dress on pinned together; it's working better than the last attempt, but I'm still frustrated by how my bump makes it look so far from the twenties silhouette; this is just something I have to accept, I guess. Still lots of work to do on it and the final version may look better; I shall update as it comes together!

New project: restoring a 1920s beaded dress

During a recent visit to my lovely in-laws, my mother in law mentioned that she still had an original 1920s beaded dress that had belonged to her grandmother that I could have, since she knew I loved vintage clothes. Given that my wedding ring originally belonged to the same grandmother and I am somewhat sentimental, getting to wear this dress is a particularly lovely though.

We did however have to venture into their attic in an attempt to find it (always a somewhat nervouse enterprise in case the ancient dress has somehow got damp or moth ridden and turns out to be no ruined!). After much clambering around and rifling around old boxes and suitcases in the attic with flashlights, it started to look like our search was in vain - could it possibly have been thrown out by accident! Oh Noes!

Luckily my mother-in-law then remembered that she's never put it in the attic in the first place - it was in fact carefully wrapped in the bottom of a draw in the main part of the house, and didn't even have that usual mothball scent of old clothes not worn for a long time and indeed smells quite delightful.

However, it does need some restoration, so this is my new project:

This picture is how it looked as found.

It has been used for fancy dress in decades past (something that has probably stopped many beautiful old clothes from being thrown away, so we should be grateful for it), which means that it had been shortened, and there were rusty staples in it in places where tin foil had been attached for some reason. The beading itself has also come away in several places.

Luckily the shortening only involved a wide hem being added and the shoulders sewn up, so this was easy to fix. The staples also came away with relative ease and left minimal marking.

However fixing the beading will be more challenging. First I need to firmly fix back in place the beading that is still there but loose (which is why I still haven't tried the dress on for fear of loosing more of them - so I have no idea whether it will even fit when I'm finished!). Then I need to decide whether to try to recreate the beading that is missing. The original pattern of the beading can still be clearly seen in the marks that it left in the cloth. However replacing the missing beads presents several challenges. Firstly - finding beads similar enough to the originals. They are a silver/grey shade, which I think I should be able to find, but the difference between old and new (gven they will be made using different techniques) may be too obvious. Secondly, are my sewing skills up to it? I have a little practice at attaching beading from when I made my replica 1920s dress and also from a couple of other projects, but to be honest I found it tricky to do and I'm not sure it's up to the standard of 1920's dressmakers!

So all in all, there's a risk that I could put a lot of effort into trying to recreate how it looked when new without it actually working. So the question is - should I try it, or should I leave it and be content with a dress where some of the beading is missing - and will it show too much for the dress to be wearable?

I will post more pictures as the project progresses and hopefully eventually how it looks on! The colour is so beautiful, I can't wait til I can finally wear it out!

Vintage shopping in Kingston

I've been rather bad at posting here lately - it feels like life has been too busy to actually report on it! I'll post in more detail about some of the things I've been up to soon, but in the meantime, here's to day's vintage find: a new vintage shop in Kingston, 'That Vintage Shop' (Old London Road, Kingston http://www.thatvintageshop.co.uk/ ).

I was actually in Kingston to pick up some fabric for a new re-enactment project, but on the way out of my favourite fabroc shop, FabricLand, I noticed a new vintage shop had opened up almost next door and popped in for a browse around. It's been a while since I had time to pop to this part of town, so I'm not sure how long it's been open, but based on their website, at least since March and I just hadn't noticed it yet.

Anyway, 'That Vintage Shop' is a nicely presented little vintage boutique, with items ranging from around the 1950s up to relatively modern second hand clothing (OK, I'm still in denial that the 1990s should be included in the terms vintage or even retro!). The more modern clothing tends not to have dates and descriptions on the tags, but the older clothes do, something I consider important in a vintage shop. The datings also seemed to be accurate from what I looked at, which is an important criteria in a shop for me. It's very definitely one of the types of vintage shops that tries to find items that match with current trends with maxi dresses and pleated skirts on offer. The clothes were well arranged and easy to rifle through. Prices were reasonable - not the cheapest you'll find, but not outrageously priced either.

The shop also had a good range of bags, hat and accessories, and also some modern vintage inspired clothes and hats as well. There were also cute touches such as an old fashioned style guest book for customers to leave comments in. This is definitely a shop I'll be popping into again when I'm passing, which is luckily fairly often.

Whilst on the subject of vintage shopping in Kingston, I should mention the Antiques market on the same street. A little indoor bazaar of lots of little antiques stalls, it's one of my favourite places to browse for vintage items, from furniture and home wares to clothes. The clothing side has always been hit and miss - a great deal more modern second hand clothes than proper vintage, but it has always been a place where with a good rifle around you can often find some really nice pieces at very good prices. Some of my favourite possessions were found hidden away in an obscure corner of this place. However, of late the clothing side has been going from strength to strength, with more vendors and a better range and quality of vintage clothing. Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in that part of town!

Vintage Cardigans: original vintage or a composite?

Here's a question thats been bothering me for a while and I'm hoping wise folk on the internet can help with: there seem to be a range of supposedly vintage cardigans with fur collars all over the place at the oment, which are all spookily similar. Are they for real?

To explain: at the London Vintage Fair a while back I found a gorgeous cream ardigan with eal fur collar. It had a diamante closure at the waist and a lining consisting of lace covered by chiffon, giving a very pretty effect of the lace showing through. It was quite distinctive and I nearly bought it, but decided to think on it a while as it was £75 and I am still slightly conflicted about wearing real fur, even when its vintage. I went back a little later and unsurprisingly it was old, but what did surprise me is that the vendor gave me her card, saying they got them in regularly. I assumed she meant cardigans with fur collars, but not the identicl thing.

I then wandered off round the fair a bit more, and to my surprise found another one of these, all the same features (fur collar, diamante closure in the same place, lace and chiffon lining) but in black for about £100.

Since then, I have seen the exact same item in a number of different shops. Looking at them, all the constituent parts do indeed seem to be vintage - the cardigan, the closure, the fur - they're always clearly originals, but he overall design and way its been made is always the same. I find this weird as one of the things about vintage is that even when you find something of the same broad fashion (in this case fur collared carigans), they are usually still distinctively different in some way.

So, my question is - was there really such a string fashion for this tyle at one point that there are lots of these on the market? (baring in mind I've never seen these before this year!) Or is someone making these and selling them on as original vintage, presumably combining original peies to make these more expensive items? I'd really like to know, as they are lovely, but I object to being sold something as original vintage at a high price when it may actually be an 'upcycled' item masquerading as vintage.

Here's the only picture of one of these I've been able to find online - an expired ebay sale I'm afraid, so not a great picture: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-FUR-COLLAR-CARDIGAN-/260821470705  I'd be grateful for any information/thoughts on these!

Vintage @ Southbank - a flying visit

London's Southbank is probably one of my favourite places in the world, but I decided a while back not to get tickets for the Vintage @ Southbank last weekend. This was primarily because of the price and the fact it failed to sell itself to me in terms of what you got for that money. The trouble is, London has so much on offer for vintage types as it is, so I suppose the festival needed to offer something really special for the price, and I just wasn't convinced. When the reduced price offers started going around a week or so ago, I was far more tempted - but by then I had got myself booked out busy for pretty much the whole weekend.

On seeing that there were quite a few free things going on outside the Royal Festival Hall, I decided to squeeze a visit into the only two free hours I had all weekend - Sunday morning. So I got up early and headed up to Southbank for 11am.

Royal Festival Hall - the bit I didn't go in!

beach huts

Unfortunately I initially wandered off in the wrong direction along the riverside, but this did mean I got to discover some of the groovy new things that have been set up along there recently, including a roof garden and beach area. I also mooched around the beach huts exhibit outside, which was pretty cool, and included a hut full of vintage swimsuits and bizarrely, and to my excitement, a mention of my grandfathers company and something he invented in one of them.

Granddad gets a mention at the bottom

vintage swimsuits through a window in a beach hut

This took up about half an hour or so before I finally found the vintage market place. This was nicely set up but already crowded. It was a rather hot day and not great for browsing due to having fight past people to get to the stalls, so I didn't actually buy anything, but I was pretty impressed with the range of stalls they had attracted, and found several vendors that I took cards of to look into again at a later date.

vintage market place entrance

My favourite was probably 'Hilary's Vintage', who had a great selection of good quality vintage of the styles I like (1940s, 50s and 60s) but sadly she doesn't have an online presence, so all I could get from her was a list of vintage fairs she'll be at soon, so I'll probably try to track her down again at the Clerkenwell Vintage Fair in September.

shop fronts in the market place

I also liked the www.solovesvintage.com stall for giving me a bunch of cute postcards on the theme of 'Which Era are you', and signed up for their newsletter.  Hepburn and Leigh (www.hepburnandleigh.co.uk) had some cute retro lingerie, and Miss Libby Rose (www.miss-libby-rose.co.uk), based in Greenwich looks worth a visit to their store for not just their vintage inspired clothes but also their intriguing sewing and craft lessons and haberdashery. I also loved the Horrocks shop with its reproduction 1950s dresses and gorgeous bedlinen.

tearoom

There was a rather lovely looking tea room set up that I desperately wanted to sample, but didn't really have enough time. Similarly it would have been fun to take advantage of the beauty boutiques, but I was much more focused on getting round everything. I particularly impressed by the vintage funfair set up to entertain the kids.

traditional fun fair

All in all, I found myself disappointed to have to leave as there was plenty more still to look around, and I certainly could have had an entertaining day in the market and along the southbank without needing to venture into the Royal Festival Hall itself.

Favourite vintage and fashion history websites

So, I've been doing some tidying up of the blog and have also added a list of some of my favourite vintage and fashion history websites to the side bar. It's not exhaustive and I'm sure I'll add plenty more in future, but here's a quick round up of what these sites are and why I like them;

Fashion Era: http://www.fashion-era.com/

One of the best fashion history reference resources on the web, the  amount of information on here is staggering, covering a huge range of eras and categories, and I owe this lady a great deal for vastly enlarging my knowledge of vintage and fashion history!

Vintage Fashion Guild: http://vintagefashionguild.org/

Lots of fascinating articles and a great reference source, particularly it’s clothes labels directory. Also has a useful set of forums

The Vintage Guide to London: http://www.thevintageguidetolondon.com/

Great information on vintage shops and things to do round and about London

The Costumers Guide to Movie Costumes: http://www.costumersguide.com/

Yes it’s focus is movies, but the information and detail on recreating movie costumes is a great resource for those looking for vintage inspirations and tips on recreating historic clothing

Past Patterns: http://www.pastpatterns.com/

A great vintage pattern resource – even if you’re not into trying to make reproductions yourself,  it’s still useful for the illustrations

Your Wardrobe Unlock’d: http://yourwardrobeunlockd.com/

Another site for costumiers, this is still a great resource on fashion history. It’s a subscription site, but there are a number of interesting free articles too

Victoria & Albert Museum:  http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/f/fashion/

What London vintage lover doesn’t love the V&A? I visit their fashion exhibitions regularly, I have a number of their gorgeous fashion history books, and they also have a wonderful section of their website devoted to it to, which is hugely enjoyable to drool over as well as having some useful information too…