A Trio of Dresses - Part 1

It occurred to me the other night, after making plans with a friend to get all dressed up fancy, that my evening wear is more or less limited to cutesy, somewhat moth-eaten vintage, over-the-top novelties, and quirky bargains rescued from thrift stores. A sample is presented below:

1940s day dress	Evening gown from a 1920s pattern	Vintage kimono	1950s-1960s day dress
1960s cocktail dress	1950s cocktail dress	1930s day dress	1970s/80s day dress

Now, before you interject on the rights of less-than-perfect garments, let me just say that those things have a special place in my heart. With each piece, I have memories of... well, lots of memories. But the time has come for sometime sleek and stylish! Something I can wear that is purely elegant, without a hint of irony! And so a new project was born.

Initially, I thought I would just save myself a lot of time and effort and just go out and buy myself a nice, new dress, but after a lot of searching, this proved more or less fruitless. One thing I did discover, however, is that silk knocks a autumn/winter party dress up a notch in fanciness. Also, most contemporary designs just didn't have that same mystique that the vintage ones do. I had my parameters.

I managed to find a $5 pink polyester number that fit like a dream, with pretty nice lines for my pattern.


Next, I found an aqua-blue XL silk dress and a royal blue silk skirt for my fabrics. (I really couldn't decide which I liked better, but since they were both only $5 as well, I got both).

And finally, I searched around for the perfect design: something that followed the same basic lines as the pink dress, but a bit more interesting. I toyed around with ruching and pleats, but it was all too busy. At Dorthea's Closet, a lovely and vintage store way out of my budget, I found this awesome dress.

Really, the only major different between this dress and the pink one is the straps, which should be easy to augment. I guess, we shall see!