Janet Arnold Competition - Sept-Jan 2011/12

The first project of our first year was to use Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion and select a dress of our choice to study and accurately re-create.  I chose a 1930s bias cut chiffon evening dress.  Although machine-sewn unlike a lot of the other dresses featured in the books, the chiffon fabric proved difficult to work with, especially as it was also bias-cut, and required me to produce a lot of samples to learn the best way to work with the fabric.


The main feature of the dress is the ruffles on the centre front.  They are made up of 10 strips of semi-circles sewn together and then stretched out along a straight edge to create the ruffle effect.
The skirt consists of triangular pattern pieces and the bodice is a sleeveless design, with gathered shoulder seams, a delicate cowl neckline and a v-neck back.
Most of the edges of the dress were finished off with a picot -edging.


The dress gave me the chance to work on new techniques that I had so far been lacking in my portfolio.  Working with both chiffon and bias-cut fabric was a big challenge but taught me how to handle the fabric and feel much less daunted about working with such a light-weight/bias cut fabric.