1925 “Geometric” Dress

Because of the fact we have officially entered the 20s, I thought it would be a good idea to make a 1920s dress. The 1920s saw an explosion of geometric deigns and patterns embraced that fully. My pattern is from Decades of Style and is their 1925 Zig Zag Dress. My fabrics for this project included a vintage red and gold sari I got from the Costume College 2019 Bargin Basement as well as a 100% linen drape from Goodwill.

The fiist step was to cut out all the patterns pieces from the white linen, which was the base layer of the dress. The pieces include a front and back panel that end at the high as well as 8 gores that make up the skirt.

The pattern pieces were then cut out of the red sari, which I positioned in such a way that the gold border would be placed at the hem of the dress.

Here is how all the pieces looked after being ironed and pre-assembly, just pinned on my dress form.

The final step before assembly as to baste the sari and linen layers together for every piece. This was done by hand usins a long needle and long runnig sitch.

Now it was finally time to start assembly. I first step was the put in the smocking like gathering stiches at the shoulder seam on the front panel. It was gathered down to fit the shoulder seam of the back panel and the threads tied off to finish.

The shoulder seam was then sewn and finished by placing a piece of twill tape over the seam.

The side seams were then sewn and finished by felling, which is shown here.

I then finsihed the armholes and neckline with some scarps of the gold border of my sari fabric.

The next step was to make piping for the gores, for which I used some scraps of linen as well as some macrame cord.

The piping was then sewn onto the front, back, and side gores. It was not sewn on the four other gores becasue it was unecessary seeming as they would soon be sewn togther to a gore that did have piping.

All eight gores were then sewn togther and the seams ironed opened and felled down by hand to finish.

I then sewed piping onto the bottom of the front/back panels were the gores attach. The gores were then attached by hand using slip stiches. (which took a long time btw)

The seam that jointed the gores and the top of the dress togther was then folded outward and sewn down by hand using whip stiches.

The final step before the dress was down was to finish the hem. For which I sewed a piece of twill tape to the outside of the hem, trimmed away the fabric under the twill tape, and folded the twill tape under and sewed it down by hand using whip stiches.