Aug 28, 2017

1940's Swing Dress Inspiration

Vintage Aircraft Weekend is quickly approaching , which means its time for a new dress! This is my big event of the year, with a dinner dance on Friday night, and the airshow the next day; it's a great weekend.

I love dressing up and every year I tell myself I should make a dress, but somehow I never end up actually making one and end up wearing something either authentic vintage or vintage inspired. But not this year. I'm determined to actually make my dress this year even though my schedule has been crazier than ever. But it's 1940's, it should be simple enough, right?

While I'm busy scrambling around sewing, I thought I'd share some of my inspiration for the dress I'm making this year.

Before I decided on doing a 1940's swing dress, I threw around several different idea's and era's. I really love the elegant beauty of the 1930's and the full skirts of the 50's, so I was open to any of those era's as well. For a while I was throwing around the idea of a 1950's cotton lawn dress after I found the perfect pink lawn online. But I decided I really wanted to do a 40's swing dress since I usually ended up doing 50's.

Late 30's, early 40's Fashion.

1940's Day Wear

Early 1940's Fashion

c. 1942 Via


I cam across the below picture and I loved the bow neckline but I knew it would be too time consuming to draft up a pattern. But I loved the dress so much, so I kept it in mind.
c. 1942 via


Then I came across Katherine's dress on Mode de Lis and fell in love with the similar design to the one above, and I realized she had used a Simplicity pattern that I've had in my stash for several years now.
Katherine's dress

Like Katherine, I'm using Simplicity pattern 1587 for the bodice and drafting my own skirt pattern. I'll be sure to write more about that in a future post. But for now, it's time to get sewing!

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