Dress Magic

Let's face it, I'm a chubby girl. I write about being chubby all. the. time. I admit it, I sweat when I eat. So when I find something that can make you look skinny, I will totally share that secret. Now, granted, the secret is a designer dress. However, I also know the secret to making one of you own. So I'll share that one one with you, too.

I was inspired to write this by my friend Bitch Cakes's recent blog about dressing to flatter your body. And one thing that flatters nearly every body is a wrap dress in a not-too-clingy knit. THE wrap dress was "invented" by Diane Von Furstenberg in the 1970's, and it has been a classic ever since. You can pick up your very own from DVF.com for a mere $345.00 (plus tax and shipping).


OK, let's face it. $345.00 for a dress just isn't going to happen. That's a car payment. My month's grocery bill. A round-trip plane ticket to see a friend. I'm not spending that on a dress. Especially not when I CAN SEW ONE. And you can sew one, too. So, why pay $345.00 (or more, go look at the website) when you can purchase a pattern and fabric, even a full price, even if you make it from silk jersey from a swank fabric store, for less than $75.00? I'll be honest with you. I bought my pattern on sale for $3.99, and the fabric for $4.00 a yard. My dress cost me a grand total of $15.99 and one Saturday afternoon.

Now, you can do this one of two ways. You can either go back and find one of the actual patterns that Diane Von Furstenberg licensed to Vogue Patterns back in the 70's. They are out there, on vintage pattern sites, eBay and even in your local second-hand shops should you get so lucky (check out Patterns from the Past blog for more awesome pics of vintage patterns):



However, you could wait a while for your size to come up, the price might be daunting, the pattern might be damaged, cut already, incomplete, or any of the other ailment that vintage patterns typically suffer from.

I, on the other hand, suffer from extreme impatience and the need to begin projects RIGHT NOW as opposed to waiting for just that pattern to be available on an auction website. Don't get me wrong, I'll still lurk eBay looking for the original pattern, but in the meantime I have found one that makes a great substitute, Vogue 8379:


Granted, 8379 has a slightly wider skirt shape than the original DVF wrap, but, it has the "magic", the skinny magic. Like I said, I am not a skinny girl, but I have made multiple versions of this dress, for myself and others, and every person will tell you that this dress nips in the waist and hides any number of sins of the flesh as related to hips and thighs. Also, the wider skirt has a big overlap, so you are not constantly clutching at the skirt afraid that it is going to fly open, another big plus.

Here is my most recent version:



And I'll be totally honest with you...I'm not that thin! These dresses are magic. My friend Bitch Cakes on the other hand really is truly tiny. Here she is in hers. I cut a 10. A PATTERN 10. You KNOW that is small.

But, you can see, that even though I am taller and bustier, the dress is equally flattering on both body shapes. If you really want to see it on LOTS of bodies, go check out the reviews on PatternReview.com. Just filter by the pattern number, and you will see dozens of versions.

The one thing that you will learn from all those reviews though is that this pattern straight from the envelope is short-waisted. In fact, it was PERFECT for petite Bitch Cakes completely unaltered. I didn't have to shorten a single thing for her, even though she is truly a petite.

I, on the other hand, am 5' 6" and have shoulders like a line backer. Now, when sewing with knits, you can get away without a lot of alterations just because knits stretch. But, if you have a bit of a belly like I do, the short-waistedness of this pattern will bug you. In the first version of this dress I cut it completely unaltered and the waist tie would "pop up" over the top of my belly over the course of the day, simply because of the placement.

Now, that is not the worst problem in the world, and I won't stop wearing the dress. Let's face it, for a chubby girl, putting your clothes back where they are supposed to be during the course of the day is pretty much second nature, kind of like keeping a travel baby powder in your purse for chub-rub emergencies. It's just what we DO. But I decided if I was going to be "large and in charge," so to speak, I could fix that problem with the pattern. Lengthening the bodice of a pattern is SUPER-EASY, so I will show you how to do it for this dress, since anyone over 5' 4" should consider doing it for this pattern.

First, pretty much every pattern will have marked somewhere on it where you should make the alteration if you decide to lengthen it. This pattern was no different.


Starting with the bodice back, I cut along that line, and added a strip of paper equal in width to the length that I wanted to add to the bodice of the dress.


The front of the bodice is a little bit more difficult, because of angle of the front of the dress. I added a strip in the same way that I did with the back bodice:


However, with the angled front, you will now have to deal with where that is now offset. I KNOW what you are thinking. You are thinking "Michelle, you bitch! You said this would be easy!!!" It is, I swear! Don't worry!!! Just add one more tiny little strip of paper:


And then transfer the lengthening to your facing pattern as well:


One last thing to remember, we have lengthened the front bodice as well as widened it. So that means we have to take into account how that impacts the pattern pieces that that piece touches, correct? Now, we have already taken into account the impact that it has on the facing by lengthening that piece. The only other piece that it touches is the skirt front, so now we have to widen that, too, right? Wrong! Look at the skirt front pattern piece. There is a super-wide fold-over facing, two inches wide in fact. We widened the bodice front by one inch, so just remember when you are assembling the skirt, that the front facing is a one inch fold-over instead of two inches. Pretty clever, eh?


Just remember that sewing with knits is super simple as long as you take into account the stretch and adjust your sewing technique accordingly.

Next up, two more versions of the "Magic Wrap Dress," in some great patterned knits. I will probably make multiple versions of this dress, as I consider this a TNT pattern (tried n true). If you find one that has "good bones," use it a basis for many versions, different skirt lengths, collars, cuffs, contrast ties; you can get a lot of different looks that will ultimately be more flattering and versatile than making a lot of different patterns that may be less flattering on, and ultimately get less wear. I even do the same thing with ready to wear...if I find a pair of pants or a shirt that looks really great, I get it in EVERY COLOR. Here are the next fabrics on the cutting table. I'm taking Bitch Cakes's advice and going large-scale with prints. They're more slimming!