Vogue 9100 and vintage Simplicity 3470 mash up

Before we start, I would just like to say that no dresses were harmed, splashed with salt water or got flecked with sand during this shoot.

Ok, ok, maybe a little. But gee, wasn't it worth it for the fun and pure child-like delight of splashing about in the ocean in a fancy dress!

I say that this dress is a mash up, but what I really did was use the bodice from Vogue 9100, and then run with the concept of the skirt from Simplicity 3470. I wanted an insanely full skirt, so I made the skirt 3 metres wide before gathering, and made the frill 6 metres wide. When I was actually gathering all those miles of fabric together I did wonder if I had taken leave of my senses, especially since gathering fabric of one of my least favourite sewing jobs, but the end result was worth the sore fingers from pulling those gathering threads tighter and tighter. No pain, no gain!

Another change I made was to make the shoulder straps 2cm shorter on each side. I've made Vogue 9100 3 times now (see version one and version two), and the shoulders do tend to slip a little, so by shortening them I bypassed that wear issue.

All in all, I love this dress! It took a lot of work, as the lace was underlined (so each piece was underlined before I began sewing any pieces together), and then the dress itself was fully lined, but I'm glad I put the work in - this is going to be part of my forever wardrobe for sure!

Project Details:
Patterns - Vogue 9100 and vintage Simplicity 3470.
Fabric - Navy blue lace and cotton for both underlining and lining from The Fabric Store.
Notions - 35cm invisible zipper.