13 DRESSES : DRESS 12
I threw dress 12 together in a hurry when I realized we had tickets to the closing night of the Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thompson Hall. They used the word ‘gala’ on the ticket and when I looked at all my new dresses, none of them said ‘red carpet’ to me. I had never been to see any films at TIFF before, so I decided a new fancy dress was in order.
Over the years, I have rescued various textiles and threads, not ever knowing what I would do with them. I only knew that they couldn’t be thrown away. I have a box of vintage custom-dyed charmeuse silk remnants. The colours are gorgeous and the fabric is super luxurious. One side of charmeuse is glossy and smooth, while the other side is quite matte. I always imagined they would make lovely fancy dresses, if only I had fancy dress occasions.
I went through the pile of silks and chose a ‘film strip’ grey called, ‘Smoke’. I folded the fabric in half unevenly, to create two layers of fabric. The top shiny side was shorter, revealing the matte side along the bottom. I serged a rolled hem along the top fold with light pink embroidery thread and did the same on the two bottom hems. I sewed a quick seam up the length of the fabric to make a ‘tube’. I think you know what’s coming next – shirring. Three sets of three closely spaced lines of shirring and my dress was done! I had thoughts of doing a dress more complicated or even just cut on the bias, but it was Friday night and the film was on Saturday. Plus, I wanted to watch episode 2 of Gossip Girl. My girl crush on Blair is growing. She is by far the most interesting girl on that show.
I wore my Chie Mihara grey shoes with the dress. They are one of my prized shoe possessions and they were a perfect match to the grey silk dress.
The movie, “Stone of Destiny”, is based on a true story about four university students who plan a heist to steal back the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in England and return it to Scotland. It’s a sweet, feel good movie and I enjoyed watching it all dressed up in my fancy new dress.
ONE MORE DRESS TO GO! Dress 13 has no shirring, I promise. I’m super excited, as it uses cute Japanese fabric and will be the perfect ‘fall transition’ dress. Perhaps worn with coloured tights? If I can pull that off.
8 comments
it’s wonderful karyn!
and i am loveloveloving the shoes.
ps: the more i watch gg, the more i love blair. and i am totally crushing on chuck.
Wear the coloured tights! I have a hot pink pair that I wear with all black and I love them.
You never cease to amaze me. It’s ridic! xo
Stunning! I had no idea shirring could work so well on such a luxurious, glorious fabric.
I wish I had started watching Gossip Girl from the beginning! It’s so up my alley, I don’t know why I haven’t watched it yet.
i was waiting for you to don the coloured tights so highly prized by the girls of Constance!
you will look fab.
I wish I had the legs.
I am thrilled to read Melissa’s post above and realise that someone else loves Mother Chucker.
I must admit however that I LOVE Serena, not Blair.
Serena’s leather jackets make me weep with jealousy.
melissa – thanks! i wish those shoes were more comfortable, so that i could wear them everyday. alas! why is it that we always like the bad boys?
heather – i’m going to try really hard to wear the coloured tights i bought last year, but never wore because i was afraid!
nat – xo, right back at you!
anabela – i’ll admit that i already had a gorgeous silky shirred skirt/dress from Calypso that inspired this. it was so fun working with fabric that’s so glamorous and shiny! you MUST join the gossip girl cult, you’ll never turn back!
jill – my new favourite is ‘Basshole’ from episode 2. the language alone is enough to keep me entertained. i’m going to start downloading the first season today because i know that i missed several episodes along the way. (and i think i need to do some further fashion studying of the show for inspiration)
your dress is gorgeous – so perfect for the red carpet and I can’t believe you just whipped it up! you talented thing.
stupendous – love the silk and those C.M. shoes – wow!
i’ve been looking for the perfect vintage pair in my size. : )
perfect outfit for T.I.F.F.
(my friend sent me a link to your blog because we’ve been jamming and I asked her to share the great pear jam recipe. Yum!)