Vintage Patterns

From the first moment I clapped my eyes on this little beauty, I've been deeply in love.  Never far from my mind, I had made several attempts to understand this self-drafted style.  Finally, I have something to start with.
My first ideas were based on a flat, geometric sketch as featured in the image below.  I could see how a slightly smaller hem circumference would catch on the high hip and create those beautiful drapes.

This treasure was discovered in the archives of The Metropolitan Museum along with thousands of other beautiful pieces.  Much to my surprise, I discovered that it is a fairly recent design by John Galliano for The House of Dior in 1998.
For this puzzle, the focus is on the skirt and not the tailored halter neck top.  The combination of the well-organised waterfall drape at the back of the skirt and the cowl drape in the front of the skirt was fascinating to me.

Here is the anonymous shape that was posted on our Facebook Page.  A self-drafted rectangle with three notches - that's all they got!  And they were very creative with the information.  Have a look at the comments!  And this is the Vintage Pattern (now reissued as Simplicity 8452) that started me off on a quest to make and understand how a simple, self-drafted rectangle shape becomes this elegant top?!?

Vintage Curiosity to Self-Drafted Pattern Puzzle - Wandering around in Pinterest I re-pinned the images below to my #cuttthatfrock album.  I was fascinated with the strange little pattern diagram on the back of the envelope.  The images claim that this simple shape would make that wrap top and that you can wear it wrapped from the front or the back.  Mmmm... big claims for a simple shape and such sophisticated drawings!  Convinced I could scale this up to make sense of it, I imported the image in to illustrator.
error: This content is protected !!