Pattern Review - Vogue 1485

A few weeks ago, we got to spend a lovely day with our friends and neighbors at Gold Cup! This year's theme was a 20's speakeasy.

This may have been my favorite theme so far. It was so fun, and the friends that put it together did such a fabulous job. We won 3rd place in the tailgating competition! Yay!


Finding a dress for this event was fairly painless. I wish the construction had been as painless.

This pattern warned that it was an advanced pattern and they weren't joking. The pattern I decided on was a Bellville Sassoon design from Vogue, and it was perfect. The drop waist, with gathered drape and boat neck was perfectly in keeping with our speakeasy, while not being dated.

Now the picture on the pattern doesn't do it justice. It's a bit too muted for my tastes. As you'll see I went with something a little bolder.

The dress is probably the nicest dress I've made in a very long time. It's fully lined, with no exposed seams. I do wish the guide sheet had been a little more explicit and detailed in some of their instructions and illustrations, but luckily there wasn't anything that I couldn't figure out. The toughest part of this dress was the drape. How it is actually constructed makes sense, but this is really where a more detailed explanation and illustrations would've been helpful.

As you can see to the right, I didn't go with a shy or retiring print. I went bold, and contrasted the blue brocade with a raspberry marsala color. I love the effect. The entire body of the dress was supposed to be interfaced with organza or something similar, but I felt that the brocade had enough body on it's own, so I didn't interface it. I did end up having to tape the shoulders in place, but that's mostly because I don't have much in the way of shoulders. It didn't much matter, because the day of gold cup had 20 mph winds and I didn't lose that shawl. I almost wish I'd made the jacket too, or asked my mom for her fur stole.

I did lengthen the dress by 3" in the skirt, but the pattern allows for lengthening both with the lining and the skirt, so that was nice. The skirt of the pattern has a nice hem facing out of the contrast fabric, and then the lining is slip stitched to that. The facings for the bodice are out of the main fabric and then the lining is sewn to them. The contrast band at the waist is tacked at the center back waist to keep it out of the way of the invisible zipper, and the gathered drape is sewn directly to the bodice. The drape took me almost an entire afternoon to get sewn on correctly. I ended up having to redo it a couple of times, because of how poorly the guide sheet was written, and the pictures were not helpful. Actually playing with the pieces and working through how it was supposed to lie ended up helping immensely.

Standing at the rail for the hat contest. Photo credit Doug Stroud

I'm excited to wear this dress again for the upcoming holiday parties. I still have some fabric left over, so maybe I'll reexamine the jacket for the pattern, but probably not. I can always raid my mom's closet.

Tomorrow I'll be talking about the cloche I made for Gold Cup. The best part of the hat? 1) I made it from scratch, and 2) the pattern was free!

See you guys tomorrow!