Dress reveal!

A nice surprise today: E got home so early that we had time to take pictures!

So, I quickly got to work to get myself properly kitted up to show off my new dress to best effect. After all, circa 1950, no proper lady would leave her house without gloves and a hat... 

As I've mentioned before, I made this dress, after serious consideration of patterns, from a lovely black wool crepe which has been in my stash for a while (I bought it when the best of our local fabric stores, Toetenel, was having its closing-down sale). The bodice is lined with thin and soft black cotton, the skirt with regular lining material. I ended up not using the blue silk because I didn't have enough of it. And the end, that may be for the best. You would hardly have seen it under this skirt.

This is what the technical drawing looks like. As usual, I drafted this pattern myself. I don't have particular sources of inspiration to show for it. This is just how my mind combines my love for a ±1950 silhouette with my obsession for clean shapes and visible 'bones' of the pattern (seams and darts) and my enduring addiction to interesting pockets. 
What you can't see in the drawing is that there are no side seams. Just side panels which extend into the underarm gussets. Works well. 

The skirt is a half circle which I made slightly longer at the back (I do that sometimes. Not on pencil-skirts, of course).

When I first tried it on, I wasn't sure about this dress. I feared it might end up looking just a bit frumpy. But that was before I added these pockets. I love a stick-out pocket, and I've found plenty of examples from 1940's and 1950's fashion which prove I'm not alone in that.

So there you have it... This dress is quite chique but still very comfortable. And nice and warm too.

I don't think proper ladies would do things like jumping around but any dress like this is great for twirling...