The Vivienne-Satine Dress: Part One

Source: www.WENN.com

Anyone who is a fan of Dita Von Teese may have seen her wear this dress. It's a Vivienne Westwood dress, and that was about all I could figure out. My best guess is that it's not longer sold, if it ever was. Which is a shame, because I couldn't adore that dress more. Between the gorgeous toile print and 1700's inspiration, it's the kind of dress I NEED to have in my closet. So, rather than sit around pining over it, I decided to make one myself. After all, if I could make my own bunny suit, this couldn't be too hard. Right?

After some thinking (and some hard perusing for toile-print fabrics), I realized I didn't want a knock-off. At least, not a complete one. My favorite part about the dress (although the print is to die for) is the shape. If I could pick an era that came before the 1900s, it would be the 1700s. Strictly for the fashion, if nothing else. So, with my fabric horizons expanded, I began looking for the perfect one. Sometime between deciding to make the dress and having to halt everything to make my Halloween costume, I got around to finally watching Moulin Rouge. And it sort of smashed the fixed mentality I had about disliking romance movies. Now don't get me wrong, I still really don't like romance films, but Moulin Rouge blew me away. To be honest, I hated it the first time I watched it, but upon delving into my costuming, I found myself yearning to watch it again, and after about 3 replays in a matter of days, I was head-over-heels in love with it. To further prove my point, I only just sent it back to Netflix (I got it in late September/early October), and only at the behest of my other family members who share in the movie-renting capabilities.

With the exception of Christian (of course!), my favorite character was Satine. And even on the first time of watching, when I hated it, I still adored the dress Satine wore. I think we all know which dress that is.

Source: Pinterest

That's right. The Smoldering Temptress gown. Even though (for some strange reason) she doesn't wear it for long, it still easily became my favorite outfit of hers in the film. It was for this reason that I decided I'd found my perfect fabric. I went searching and ended up on Fabric.com, where I found a stunning red charmeuse satin. It's now sitting in a bag in my sewing room, waiting to be used.

This is a quick sketch I did of the proposed dress, when I was still experimenting with fabric choices. After I decided on red satin, I changed the color from the original plum it had been to see what it would look like. That was about when I bought the fabric. And thus began the precarious and slightly anxiety-inducing journey to what I've dubbed the Vivienne-Satine Dress. I've never sewed anything using a pattern before and the pattern I'm going to use to recreate this dress is the Simplicity 4092 pattern, which is an Elizabeth Swann and Marie Antoinette pattern. For historical accuracy, I've heard that the pattern is iffy, but fortunately, I'm not trying to be historically accurate! I'm just using it to get the basic shape down, which it appears to have. I'm going to forgo the sleeves, as the Vivienne Westwood dress doesn't have any, and sew the skirt as one piece, as opposed to the overskirt with the opening to display the petticoat.

The Vivienne dress appears to have some pretty serious hip-roll action going on there (no, not the dance move), so I may consider making a pair of hip pads, after I sew the dress, if there's room to allow it. The size of them will definitely hinge on the excess fabric around the upper skirt. It seems like there might be enough, but pattern photos, in my experience, can often be misleading. I'll make a final judgement call after sewing is complete.

I'm not the fastest seamstress ever, but I'm going to be overly-optimistic and aim to start and finish the dress within two days. If I can get it done by December 30th (tomorrow!), I'll wear it for my birthday (hooray for being too fancy for dinner!). If not, I aim to finish by December 31st, and then I'll wear it for New Year's Eve.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, or nothing at all, have a happy holiday! This have been a little hectic on this side of the 'net, what with Christmas parties and last-minute shopping to attend to, but now that everything's finally coming to a standstill, I should be able to get back on the blogging bandwagon, starting with a hopeful sewing progress post as I begin a Vivienne Westwood "knock-off" project. I got some beautiful presents for Christmas and can't wait to get something for my upcoming birthday (December 30th!), so I'll also be getting around to a review of everything I got (new sunglasses! Cigarette pants! A Jenny skirt!).

Stay safe and stay sane the rest of this holiday season! New Years is almost upon us.