Ghosts of designs past...

Well, not ghosts so much as old sketches from my college days. It's been a while since I designed the old-fashioned way, with paper and pencil, so my current sketches are a bit... dubious, but here's some of my old favorites from back when I could still draw. I really like these ones because, unlike a lot of my sketches before, these are all meant to interact with each other.

Enjoy "The Misanthrope" - featuring all sorts of 17th century goodness! Did you know that trendy men wore shoes with red heels? And women wore hair pieces to make their dos wider and fuller? Ribbons and lace were quite hip for the discerning gentleman, but ladies preferred gauzy chiffon and curly ringlets to frame their heavily rouged faces.

Du Bois	Alceste
Oronte	Celimene
Clitandre	Arsinoe
Eliante	Philinte

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!