Not your usual little black dress

Many beautiful dresses have been made using the Roland Mouret-inspired Vogue 8280 pattern. I won't mention any in particular, cause I'm afraid I might forget anyone and not do justice to them.



This is my interpretation of this pattern. I chose the sleeveless version, because I want to be able to dress it down too, by wearing a white t-shirt underneath or a black long-sleeve. This is one of the things that I absolutely love about basics: you can dress them up or down so easily and transform the respective item completely.

The fabric has tiny white dots, I think you can see them in some of the close-ups.

The entire dress is underlined with nylon sheer. The step-by-step tutorial can be found here.

Underlining the top parts was a bit more difficult and this is how I did it: the flange is overlapped with the front and I didn't want that much bulk. I therefore cut the respective part from the front piece, so I can simply sew together the flange and the front.

After sewing the darts on both the fashion fabric and the underlining, I assembled the flange and the front pieces, thus obtaining two finished front pieces: one in the fashion fabric and one in the underlining. I then assembled the shoulders, leaving the side seams opened.

The next step was sewing the side seams of the fashion fabric and underlining together, using the above-mentioned technique of underlining and Hong Kong seam finishing in one. Turned and pressed but not stitched in the ditch yet.

Wrong sides together, I joined the fashion fabric and underlining at the neckline and the armholes. I turned it right side out (you still have the waist seam open), understitched as far as possible. Gave the entire thing a good press and then I sewed in the ditch, finishing the Hong Kong at the side seams. Treating the fabric and the underlining as one, I sewn the back part and the front part at the side seams. To keep everything in place, I stitched in the ditch at the shoulder stitching, thus securing the fashion fabric to the underlining. Kind of hard to explain in "not your maternal language" :).

I added a satin polkadotted ribbon at the waist. It is not meant to be a waist stay, because the dress doesn't need one, but to cover nicely the serged seams. Plus I really love the mix of tiny-tiny dots with bigger dots. I've used the same ribbon to cover and finish the end of the zipper. The hem is bias-bound, as always.





The zipper is put in by hand, using a small backstitch and inserting a small black bead at each stitch - the technique of hand-picking a zipper using beads or not is described by Susan Khalje in this online extra from Threads.



And here's a close-up of the belt.



The two roses are made from white silk and black organza, cut on the bias, plus a black organza ruffle. They are then glued together on a piece of black velvet ribbon. A tutorial and pattern for the roses will follow either today or tomorrow.