Black Party Dress

One of my first projects during the pandemic was this black mini dress. I have some other black dresses in my wardrobe, they are very modest and are more suited for a business occasion or a civil ceremony. Being in confinement, I missed going out and I found myself looking at old pictures and dreaming about our next possible outing and planning outfits in my mind. That's when I realized I need black mini dress that I can wear for more festive occasions. I was missing this from my wardrobe!

I guess making this dress was my way of coping with confinement and hoping that everything would go back to normal soon. Little did I know, today we still cannot fully enjoy the social life without feeling stressed if we would catch the virus.

Back to the project, I decided that I would like a fitted silhouette for this mini dress. After several sketches I come up with the design below, an empire bust, a fitted skirt with a tiny slit on the front side.

In order to master the empire bust pattern, I followed the instructions from the book Patternmaking for Fashion Design by Helen Joseph-Armstrong. I used my foundation dress block and modified the pattern to get the fitted look and the empire bust design. I made several toiles and adaptations on the pattern until I was fully convinced with the fit.

In order to make the slit in the front more durable, I decided to split the front pattern in 2 panels and I incorporated the slit in between the panels as shown in the below picture.

For this dress I needed a fabric that is easy to shape therefore, I chose a wool silk mix crepe fabric which has a nice weight and a soft drape. I finish all the seams with straight stitch and press each seam to ensure proper fit.

As lining I chose a silk lining fabric, and I finished the hem and the armholes by hand sewing in order to mold the dress into the desired silhouette.

Finally, I added black artificial feathers on the neckline to lift the entire appearance and give the dress a festive look.