Easter Parade Part II: Natalie's Dress

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I was thrilled that both my girls wanted me to make their Easter dress this year! I was even more thrilled that they were both wanting vintage 60’s style dresses. We’ve been very into old movies this year and they are so inspired by all the amazing dresses (and simultaneously thankful that we no longer wear corsets). I have long wanted to sew a vintage inspired dress, but not necessarily for myself, so this was the perfect opportunity.

We hopped onto Butterick’s website during a sale and ordered some patterns from the retro collection.

Natalie chose B5708. She wanted an Audrey Hepburn vibe, especially after seeing this photo of her pink dress.

We are in love with how this dress turned out!!

Now for the details! I altered the pattern quite a bit, mostly because Natalie is very slender. I made a muslin of the bodice and used that to fit it to her body. By pinning darts into the muslin, I could transfer my changes to the pattern piece itself. I ended up taking a lot of width out of the neckline (several inches, in fact), and raising the waistline up about in inch. I also raised the neckline one inch to a place she felt comfortable with.

You can see that my front bodice pattern piece took quite a beating by the time I was done altering it, haha, but maybe this will also help you see my fitting process. I made similar changes to the back piece, but didn’t change the skirt at all, since it’s just a rectangle.

This beautiful rayon fabric is from fabric.com and you can get some by clicking below. It’s a great price for super nice rayon challis!

This pattern has some great little details. I love how the waistband pieces allowed me to showcase the stripes in the fabric. And I’m mighty proud of how perfectly my invisible zipper went in. Everyone should find a good invisible zipper so satisfying.

I still have Layla’s dress to show you! I’ll have that up next week sometime. Spoiler, there’s a petticoat involved! Just for fun, here’s a recent photo I took of Natalie looking an awful lot like Audrey during a vintage inspired photo shoot we threw together just for fun. Did you know Audrey Hepburn was a ballerina before she was an actress? Now ya know :)