The Black and White Dress – as it was intended?

I have previously written about one of my favorite things I’ve made: the Black and White dress. It was a fun project and totally speaks to my true heart, which is entirely comprised of Tim Burton’s aesthetic. I made that dress 12 years ago and it is still one of my favorites, and something I bring out whenever I “have nothing to wear” to an event. It never fails me.

This time was slightly different. A decade after its creation, my life has changed. My skills have changed (hopefully improved). My budget has graduated with me, as I was still a graduate student when I made this dress. And with an increased budget, over a decade, my collection of tools for sewing has also greatly improved. So now, as I am in what is hopefully my middle Pokemon stage before reaching my final form, I am pulling out this dress again.

With about a week of notice, I decided to re-habilitate this dress for a 1700’s themed historical dance event. This was very exciting, because the original dress pattern was intended to be a costume version of a 1700’s French court gown. It has tons of pleating around the hips and is flat in the front and back, to allow for panniers or pocket hoops. Only, when I made this I didn’t have the wide-hipped pocket hoops or panniers. I owned one giant petticoat, the one I bought to go under my wedding dress. So that’s what I wore with it. But that petticoat is more of a Victorian Romantic era (early 1800’s) thing, and it is completely round, like a bell.

One week before the dance, a friend offered to loan me her pocket hoops, the wide-hipped hoops necessary for this style of dress. I was so very excited to finally see the dress in all of its glory taking up half of my living room. I was a bit emotional seeing it in its intended state after so long. I have decided a very near-future project will be to make some pocket hoops.

So with these hoops in hand, I put the dress on my dress form and began the process of fixing it up. The first order of business was the arm holes. The dress is sleeveless, but the last couple of times I wore it, it really pulled under my arms, and I was quite sore. So I didn’t want to go spend hours dancing in a dress that didn’t fit properly.

I attributed this fit problem to my own body changing shape over the last 10 years, and began the process of removing all of the beaded trim from the shoulders. Then, I needed to remove the black bias tape that was hiding the raw edges of the fabric. Here, I got to laugh at myself a bit, as I had just recently purchased my sewing machine when I made the dress. And I loved my new fancy sewing machine, with its vast array of over 60 types of stitches. And now I can laugh at the fact that I apparently tried to use every one of those stitch types on this dress. The bias tape was sewn down with a diamond weave pattern stitch, and it took forever to pick out with a seam ripper. Also, I was never certain this dress would hold up to being washed. So I didn’t wash it. And now there is a good amount of white deodorant ground into the bias tape. I proceeded to cut the arm holes wider by an inch or so in the front, and then used some more bias tape and hand-stitched it on to fix up the arm holes. Then I had to complete the annoying process of replacing the beaded shoulder loops. Every stitch, the thread and those dangly beads were in a competition to make knots, so it was tedious.

Pretty gross formerly black bias tape around the edge.

While I had the dress inside out, I realized that, back when I didn’t know how to properly finish seams, I relied heavily on hem tape, a kind of heat sensitive glue strip, to iron the seams down and glue them in place. This is messy and after several years, the glue has completely given up. So I pulled out what I could of the white gluey remains and hand-stitched the inside seams down. The waist band had no finishing. Just raw frayed fabric everywhere. So I took some bias tape and cleaned that up too. So now, at least, if I ever have to change in a ladies changing room, it won’t be obvious that this dress was made at a very low skill level.

Hem tape that is no longer holding these things together.

As I was working on the waist band, I noticed something strange: the center back of the dress was folded over…. like there was a 2-inch wide dart in it. Did I do that? Years ago? Why? I can’t even begin to guess. So I started pulling out this dart and suddenly, I know why the arm holes are pulling in the armpits for all these years. The back of the dress is far narrower than the front, pulling the shoulders back and rubbing unpleasantly on the front of the arms. After picking out that dart, I tried it on and it fit perfectly.

The dart seams were where my finger tips are. That’s how much space was removed …. but why?

At this point, I washed and ironed the dress and the underskirt and was thankful that it didn’t disintegrate in the wash, though some of the stains it has accumulated over the years didn’t go away. Well, now it’s Thursday night and I have finished all of the essentials…. what to do now? My first new addition to the dress was to make a hat to match. I just wanted a flourish of black and white, so I took a small circle of fabric and stitched it to a foam backing. Then I kind of folded it into a cone. In the center of the cone, I stitched and then hot glued for good measure, some black ostrich feathers. Now I have the vertical height I want, time to embellish. I added a couple of bows to hide the edges of the hat, and some random black doodads I had in my stash: a heart-shaped cameo on the front bow and a big black velvet oval mounted on a silver backing in the center front.

I liked the looks of the bows so much that I made 2 new bows for the dress. The skirt of the dress actually fully meets in the center, which doesn’t show off much of the white skirt underneath. It’s nice to have some contrast with all those stripes, so I made 2 bows, to act as tie-backs for the sides fo the skirt. Once I finished the bows and pinned them on, they just disappeared into the sea of black and white stripes. So I added a fluff of a black organza behind each bow before stitching it down. Contrast is good. This also served to hide a small stain on one side of the skirt.

Making the bows to add as tie-backs, with help from Pooka

Getting all dolled up

Now that the dress is finished and it is Saturday morning, it’s time to get dressed for the ball! I started out by doing my hair. This was my first attempt at this type of hairstyle, and it was certainly challenging.

I began by making a small top knot on top of my head. I then pinned in a donut style hair bun, and then wrapped that with a fake ponytail that I had braided. From there, I wanted the one curly bit that hangs down in the back, so I added a couple of wefts of clip-in extensions right up under the base of the bun. Then I added a few wefts in the very front under the bun to swirl around it and kind of hid the fact that there was a braid there. Finally, using an obscene amount of hair styling wax, I wrestled with my own very fine, limp hair to try to coax it into covering all of the fake hairpieces. At this point, my arms are so tired that I took the remaining hair in the back and just did a French twist and pinned it up, rather than making a braid or something fancy.

Then I put the hat on. I tried several (ok, a lot) of bobby pins, and just couldn’t get it to stay on securely. So I ended up taking a bit of thread and an upholstery needle and sewing it more securely to that giant bun of fake hair.

At this point, it’s 3 p.m. and… I need a nap. This was exhausting and it’s been a long week and I have to stay up all night for the ball. So I arranged all of my pillows and slept with my hair up and my hat on. Bad planning on my part.

From there, it was time for make-up. I added a bit of clown-white make-up to my face lotion and was really pleased with the pallor I achieved. From there, I took some powder foundation 1 shade lighter than my skin tone, and then combined that with baby powder and gave my whole face a good dusting to get a nice matte finish. I added bit of light pink to the high apples of the cheek, and some pink lipstick, with a very exaggerated cupid’s bow and pouty bottom lip. Then I drew in my eyebrows and put on some mascara and I was ready to go.

Walking the dog before leaving for the ball –looking a bit pale and rockin’ my giant feather hatt

At this point, it’s almost time to leave. I am still waiting for a food delivery person, with my dinner, so I didn’t want to put on the full dress yet, in case I spilled something. So I put on the rest of it. I always wear ballet tights when I am going to dance, even though it’s not exactly period accurate. It’s just more comfortable for movement. So I put on black ballet tights, and a pair of yoga shorts to keep them in place. Then on go the pocket hoops. And on top of the hoops, I put on the underskirt of the dress. Now, I am still wearing my ‘getting dressed’ dress, which is a circle-skirt swing dress from ModCloth, and it looks hilariously awesome over the hoops. I kind of need an excuse to wear those things together somewhere.

Finally, my food arrived and I enjoyed a plate of mizithra browned butter pasta from the Old Spaghetti Factory before putting on that final layer: all the black and white stripes. It fits perfectly, floating a few inches off the floor so I won’t trip over it while dancing (but still a pain in the arse when I try to climb stairs).

Completed dress – with bows on the skirt

I arrived at the ball and had a marvelous time! Going alone to these events is a bit stressful, but I’ve been attending classes and trying to make friends. Tons of people gave me compliment about my dress (though one guy called it steampunk…..), and even a couple of people complimented my dancing! I didn’t think it was possible to love this dress even more, but every time I see all those stripes, it still makes me swoon.