The Dress, Part Three: Failure at the Fabric Store.

June 2, 2015 at 7:29 pm (Projects)
Tags: 1850s, 19th century dresses, costuming, historical, research, sewing, Susan B. Anthony

I give up. That’s it. This dress just is not going to be made from historically accurate fabric. From this point forward, my primary concern will be technique.

I had three options when I went to the fabric store:

1) get the terrible cheap costume satin

2) wipe out my checking account to buy 100% silk dupioni (I budgeted for $10 a yard and even with my 50% off coupon it would have been almost $17 a yard. May not sound like much, but at 14 yards it adds up quickly!)

3) buy not-at-all natural fiber “shantung” fabric with a fake silk texture for about $4 a yard

As much as I wanted to buy the silk (and believe me, I spent a good ten minutes gazing at it longingly, contemplating the merits of white-bread-and-peanut-butter diets) I went with the responsible choice and got the $4-per-yard stuff. It hurt, but spending half my budget for the same amount of fabric almost made up for it. Now I just have to wait for it to be shipped in, because they didn’t have 14 yards on the floor and had to order it from their warehouse. The young woman at the cutting counter was very curious as to why I required 14 yards of black shantung fabric, but once I explained we started discussing the pros and cons of petticoats and crinolines. Our discussion moved to her project (a 1950s style dress with a red Marvel print bodice, yellow midriff panel, and blue skirt reminiscent of Wonder Woman’s outfit) and we ultimately discovered that we’d both be attending Connecticon in July.

The shantung is definitely too thick to make nice small pleats (or to wear in double layers), so I also found what I think is an adequate lightweight fabric for the pleated panels on the bodice. Unfortunately it, too, is very synthetic, but as I said before: I’ve given up on accurate materials. I don’t think the lighter fabric would be tough enough to make up the entire dress and hold together, or give the skirt the right weight and body, so I hope the two fabrics look alright together.

 

This gives you some idea of what the bodice/dickey fabric will look like together