Details Of The 1928 Green Silk Dress

Back in August, at Newport, I wore a whole lot of new dresses. One of them was this 1928 green silk evening dress based off of an image in Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Women’s Clothes.

It was recently requested that I share more information about this dress, and maybe some extra pictures. This dress was lovingly placed in my closet upon my return from Newport, but as you’ll soon see, the silk charmeuse just LOVES to wrinkle! I didn’t steam the wrinkles out to take closer pictures, so you’ll have to bear with the wrinkly silk.

The dress is a basic tunic with no waist, as you can see in one of the first pictures. I used my measurements to determine the basic shape, then held it up to myself (super scientific, I know) to determine arm and neck openings. I cut them, sewed the shoulder and side seams, then put the dress back on to make changes.

I didn’t want to put closures on the dress, but I did want those horizontal folds around the waist. Without a waist, the dress just droops and pulls on the side with the drape-y bits. So how did I fake a waist while still allowing easy access to the dress with no closures? Well, I took an elastic hair tie and scrunched the dress up while wearing it so that it sat the way I wanted! Then I pinned a (modern, ahem) sequined flower (left over from my beginning ballroom dancing days) to hide the scrunch. The sequins are bronze and gold, so while it didn’t match perfectly, I think it worked just fine.

It was a rather down-and-dirty sewing job. I wasn’t out to have the most beautiful interior of a dress (as I almost usually am). I was simply trying to get the dress done as quickly and easily as possible, so I could spend time making my other dresses really lovely, inside and out. As I have mentioned before, the 1920s aren’t super inspiring to me, so I didn’t have a whole lot invested in this dress, except that I wanted to look great at the Gatsby Ball at Newport with minimum effort. (My original thought was to hand bead a dress… but I didn’t have the time or interest for that, in the end.) However, I’ve got another 20s event coming up next year… and I plan to make a new 20s dress. And this time, it will be beaded. You’ll have to wait for a future post to hear about my plans for the new 20s dress!

SaveSave