Since my last post at the end of January, I swung from no sewjo to creative overwhelm. I wanted to sew all the things all at once. The end result is that I didn’t sew anything, frozen for the longest in indecision. I cycled through pattern prepping a number of patterns and fabrics that I ultimately set aside, because while everything was calling me, nothing was giving me that energetic hit that comes when I’m sewing a project I’m excited about. I did this wash, rinse and repeat more than a few times before I found myself literally saying: “Get back to basics”! Once I begin thinking about the basics, then the idea of creating some classic wardrobe staples, the timeless pieces that hold up in any woman’s rotation of go-to clothing pieces. Suddenly all of my sewing ideas narrowed down immediately to the classic shirt dress. It’s no secret that Ralph Lauren is one of my favorite designers. For me Ralph Lauren has always represented the essence of American quiet luxury; well-tailored but timeless silhouettes that you own forever. He is one of the few designers whom I will drop money on to add investment pieces to my closet. I also gladly buy Ralph Lauren second hand when I find it at consignment shops. That’s the true mark of classic tailoring: it never goes out of style. So in that train of thought, came the Ralph Lauren inspired look button-down shirt dress, because while I love the look of Ralph Lauren, my pocketbook doesn’t (laughing).
PROJECT DETAILS:
Ralph Lauren Inspired Shirt Dress: McCall’s 7351, View D. This is the quintessential simple shirt dress pattern. It has a bit of a 90’s shirt dress feel to it, which seems like all the craze right now. I’d had this pattern in sewing queue for about as long as it’s been out, which was 2016. Quite frankly it’s a big part of my creative overwhelm recently. I have an obscene amount of patterns and fabric and I want to sew everything, but the indecision that comes with too many choices can be just as debilitating. To create the classic look I had in mind, I wanted the dress to be midi. That was the only modifications I made to this pattern. I increased the length of the skirt by a whopping eight inches. The reason why I added so much length, was because I knew I was going to use at least two inches on the hem alone, and while the original pattern length is great, I wanted to be able to get maximum twirl potential. This is often a wonderful but dangerous fabric thing to do when you’re dealing with a circle skirt, not to mention the math and calculating adding length while keeping the circumference accurate. Thankfully one of the benefits of cutting a circle skirt is the ability to cut it on a cross fold which gives you the maximum length that you will never get on a regular selvage fabric fold (please bear with me any non-sewing people who just chewed through all of that sew talk, ha ha!).
FABRIC – The real MVP of this project was the fabric. This heavy draped 100% Tencel twill is the stuff of fabric dreams. I found it at one of my handful of beloved shops that I frequent in the LA Fashion District. On this particular trip at one such place an employee pointed out this roll of white fabric and declared it had my name written all over it. He’d been hoping I’d stop in before it was sold out. I promptly bought the last of the roll at $2 a yard. This is easily a $30 plus a yard fabric. It washes, sews and pretty much behaves like a dream. While sewing with it, I did run into a bit of a delicacy to the fabric that is not typical, which indicated to me that this particular deadstock fabric was pretty old and had been sitting for some time somewhere before the shop bought it, because it had a little bit of dry rot damage that only showed up if you snagged the fabric in just the wrong way. Even with that minor inconvenience, this fabric by far exceeded my expectations for this project. Tencel twill has the most luscious drape. To me it combines the best of all worlds fabric wise. You get the drape of a silk/satin, but the stability and weight of a woven twill.
STYLE – I had on a pair of dark curry mustard yellow colored silk Sam Edelman Yaro sandal heels, which they no longer make since these were a limited edition seasonal color. I had on my usual gold hoop earrings with my now vintage Anne Klein gold watch.
Nikki Nicole Sew 