Butterick 5814: The Draped Wiggle Dress

Now that my coat is finished, I'm embarking on a new project: sewing up my other new Butterick pattern for myself! (It's Butterick 5814, and it's currently on sale for $3.99 online.) While I don't quite have the stamina to do an official sew-along for this one, I will be doing a series of detailed posts on its fit and construction. Like I did with the coat pattern, I wanted to start with a post on the design and its inspiration.

From the beginning (when I proposed this design to Butterick), I've always called this "The Draped Wiggle Dress." When I think of the classic wiggle dress, I usually think of something in wool, with sleeves and a higher neck. (Like the one in my book!) But then there's also the cocktail-style wiggle dress, in a fancier fabric. The genesis for this one was the green dress Joan wears in a Mad Men poster.

I loved the side drape on the dress she wears here. From this point, I started looking at other designer dresses from the era, particularly the work of Peggy Wood. It was her use of little raglan sleeves and bodice draping that inspired by own bodice design. Here's an example of a typical Peggy Wood bodice:

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So now you can see how my own design was born; it's a mish-mash of a couple favorite styles.

It's certainly an interesting way to design. It's obviously nothing original, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its challenges. While working on a pattern like this, things constantly need to be tweaked and re-imagined. Taking cues from photos is one thing, but then the process of putting those details into an original pattern can be quite time-consuming and difficult.

Tomorrow I'll write about the construction of this dress. While it looks drapey and soft, it has a serious inner structure, including steel boning, underlining, and a grosgrain waist stay!