My Elizabeth Bennet Outfit for the Jane Austen Festival

Hello Ladies!

As many of you probably know, this week was the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England.  I had the privilege of participating in the festivities back in 2009, and had the most unbelievable time!  You really felt like you had just stepped onto the set of Pride & Prejudice!  For the months leading up to the event, I dreamed about what costume I would wear, and I was sure that I would have to make a reproduction of my favorite outfit that Lizzie Bennet wore in the '95 A&E version of Pride & Prejudice. 

This outfit was the one she wore in the opening shot where Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy come riding along on their horses.  It was a simple white day dress with a lovely blue-green jacket over the top.  I love how the jackets from the Regency era had such flattering waistlines and detailed sleeves.  And this particular jacket was no exception!  With the multi layered sleeves, bust gathers, and scooped neckline, it is one of the most elegant Regency spencer jackets I have ever seen! 

So in recreating this costume I used various pattern pieces from the Regency patterns available at http://www.sensibility.com/ , and drafted some of my own to arrive at a jacket that is nearly identical to the film version.  The only noticeable difference (and I realized this after the fact), is that I should have gathered the very top sleeve (the pointed cap sleeve).  If I ever wear it again some day I may rip out the sleeves, regather it, and sew it back into the armsceye.  But I was in a great hurry when I was making this dress (I only started a few days before I was scheduled to leave for England), so all things considered I was very happy with how it turned out. 

The Jane Austen Festival was an absolutely wonderful experience, with over four hundred people in complete Regency attire.  You can read more about the experience on my blog, and if you are interested in visiting Bath England yourself, you will enjoy this website. 

Happy sewing!

Katrina
http://www.edelweisspatterns.com/

Outfit from the film "Lover Come Back"

Hi, dear sewers! I thought I share with you that I sewed the suit by choosing from the film "Lover Come Back", a beautiful suit that looks like Doris Day in this film and I've played I draw the patterns for it.

Of course, you can find information throughout the construction process in my blog, Sewingadicta.http://sewingadicta.blogspot.com/
  We also take this opportunity to tell you that I am holding a giveaway on my blog on the occasion of choosing the suit that I sew from the movie this February, "Marnie, " if you want to participate ....

1930's Career Gal Wardrobe

After writing about the Orry-Kelly designed fashions in the 1333 movie Baby Face with my gal Barbara Stanwyck, I decided to search the Internet for home sewing patterns that may have been cribbed from character Lily Power's fabulous movie costumes. These are just some of the pretties that I found.

Check my blog for screen shots of the costumes that may have inspired these patterns.

The Atonement Dress

I just wrote about this on my blog, but thought that the Sew Retro readers might be interested in this too.

Jacqueline Durran's design

I'm sure everyone who has seen the movie Atonement has already oohed and ahhed about Cecilia Tallis' (Keira Knightly) green silk dress, designed by Jacqueline Durran. Well, I just saw the film for the first time.

However, over a year ago, I was reading through the archives of The Costumer's Guide (a fabulous site on film costuming) and read about the dress. The page on the dress includes detailed closeups of the dress after it was placed on display and anything else you might want to know about the choice of that particular shade of green to any details on Cee's other costumes is there or a link is provided to other sources. One of those links was to a great post on the creation and maintenance of the many dresses used in the film at Sunday Couture. It detailed how delicate the original dresses were because of their laser cut detail work.

The dress is fabulous and there have been many copies sold and some patterns made resembling it, the closest would be Vogue 7365, still being sold today. Eva Dress and the Vintage Pattern Lending Library also offer one with a similar feel but not as drop-dead sexy or exposed; Eva Dress 5941 or Z5941.

Vogue 7365

Eva Dress 5941

A New York Post interview about the dress.

Images: The Costumer's Guide, Vogue Patterns, Eva Dress