A Complete Course in Dressmaking/Lesson 6/How to make dresses
LESSON VI
HOW TO MAKE DRESSES
HOW do you choose your dresses? Do you buy a new one because the old one is worn out? Do you wait until the last minute and rush one through for such-and-such an affair? Do you find you have several on hand and yet never just the right thing to wear or, if your dress is right, you can’t wear it with this coat or that hat? Is your wardrobe a happy family or are they at sword’s points?
If you want the most satisfaction out of a minimum amount of money spent on clothes, build your wardrobe around your dresses.
Think of your wardrobe as a whole not each garment as a detached item—to be desired for its particular qualifications. Every hat and coat and dress and skirt ought to fit into your wardrobe. They ought to harmonize. Watch out for the colors. They are the most alluring pitfall.
Of course, no woman wants all her dresses and hats and gloves and shoes one color. However, one general color scheme not only will save money, but many moments of distress. You know, there are times when you have to wear your only presentable hat with a dress, for which it was not planned. There is chance enough for color variety in the accessories.
Make your clothes interchangeable. Be sure you can slip your coat over any of your frocks and it will look as if it belonged and was not borrowed for the occasion. If you have only one or two hats, you will find it a great convenience to have them fit in with the scheme of any of your dresses.
Plan your dresses first. Decide the dominating color note that is best suited to your individuality. Probably, the two most practical color schemes are blue and brown—blue for the blue-eyed woman and brown for the brown-eyed woman.
With blue as your choice, you might follow some such plan as this. Have a dark blue cloth dress, trimmed with a touch of brick red. Your hat might be a dark blue trimmed with light gray wool yarn embroidery, touched here and there with the same shade of brick red. With this costume, a coat of dark blue velour lined with gray crepe, would be most appropriate. If your best dress was a gray crepe silk, the coat and hat would go equally well with it. You might have also an evening dress of silvery blue that could be worn with the coat.
Considering brown as a general color note, you can work out an equally adaptable wardrobe. A brown cloth dress with cream batiste collar and cuffs would go nicely with a brown hat, having trimming of jade green ribbon. In this case, you might take the color of the hat trimming for your silk frock, making it a beaded jade green crepe. A brown velour cape or coat, lined with a matching shade of silk crepe, would complete the outfit. An evening dress of yellow crepe or taffeta could be worn with the coat, if you are not planning a special evening wrap. As a matter of fact, even if you have a special evening wrap, it’s just as well to have your evening dress match your top coat. There are always stormy nights when a perishable wrap is out of the question.
When it corner to selecting the style of your dress consider your individuality. There are styles enough to go around nowadays. No one has to wear an unbecoming, fashionable dress. Pick out your type of dress.
Chemise dresses and those with low waistlines look the best on the women who have slim youthful figures. Coat styles and dresses with a suggestion of a waistline look better in the mature figure.
Match up the fabric to the style, too. If your dress has a gathered skirt, the material ought to be thin or medium weight. Thick and coarse materials need plain styles. If you contemplate draping the dress, choose a soft goods. Wiry material can’t be coaxed into pleats and folds and long, sweeping lines.
Trimmings, too, should be in keeping with the fabric. Here are a few examples: