This was another difficult dress to find pictures. I still don't have a strong idea of what the front looks like! I was lucky enough that the MET Costume Institute has this on their Instagram. They were showing a curator packing it into the box and the extra care that comes with padding the fullness of the circle skirt. Not only did I get more pictures of this dress but I got callouts for the fullness and the circle skirt design.
The main focus of this dress is the corsetry. There is a unique styling of this dress that places boning along the seams of the bodice in double patterns. There are no cups so this corset is style more similarly to something from the 19th century than that of the mid 20th that this dress comes from. The lacing in the back is the closure of the dress and is crucial to line up properly. I had to make sure to research and get the tools to accomplish these grommets myself and then of course finding lacing that is proportional to the half scale.
The circle skirt will be a breeze to workout but getting that draped fabric piece around the shoulders and coming from the bust will take skill. Again, lucky enough that the Met posted about this piece that I found the center front twists around instead of neatly going into the bust.
Lastly, I had trouble with fabric. I was able to find a cream crepe back satin for the sample piece, but when I was searching on Mood I had a hard time choosing between a duchesse satin, a crepe back, or to get a silk charmeuse. I chose a taffeta to line the piece but I want something similarly shiny on the outside to the pictures and also to keep the softness of the skirt. Duchesses seems too firm as well as a crepe back seems too thick. I'm going to wait and see once I use crepe back for the sample and decided from there.
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