1940s Red Dress Showdown (Du Barry Edition): Sweetheart vs. Peplum?

I totally went back in time to 1942 and posed for some Du Barry pattern envelope illustrations!

Vintage lovers, I have the most exciting news for you! I HAVE BENT THE FABRIC OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM... all in the name of sewing, of course.

The idea came to me when I showed my husband the below two vintage pattern envelopes and asked him which dress would be more sexy and adorable for our upcoming Valentine's Day date.

"Sorry babe," he said, "It's really hard to tell—those illustration models are way too bony!" (Apologies to the more slender among you--this is his husbandly way of saying "honey, you look great the way you are", and I won't pretend I don't love it.)

So I tinkered around with some presser feet, rick rack and stretch lace for a bit, cobbled together a workable time-travel device, and paid a visit to the Du Barry pattern studios. I was like "Guys, all your super-stylized illustrations make it hard for the not-totally-waspwaisted among us way-in-the-future seamsters/seamstresses to picture how a dress will look on our actual bodies" and they were like "Wow, that's an excellent point."

Sadly I lost the device on my journey home, but c'est la vie! Anyway, the dress pros and cons:

Du Barry 5525 (early 1940s?):

• Pros: Sweetheart neckline, reverse sweetheart fitted hip yoke, beautiful drapey skirt.
• Cons:Will require grading up a size, something I've never attempted. And the sweetheart isn't as low-cut as I'd like. Also, I'm totally nervous about attempting 40s shoulder pads for the first time--I have really narrow shoulders!

Du Barry 5505 (1942):

• Pros: Love the princess seams, love the skirt gores, LOVE THE PEPLUM. Also, no grading--just a little tweaking of fit and my usual major FBA.
• Cons: Neckline super high, not very sexy. I tried to mitigate this in my croquis sketch by colorblocking and making the sleeves into cap sleeves, but not sure if it worked.

I did play with some other color options, but red clearly won the day:

For fabric, I went a-swatching at my favorite Garment District store, Paron's:

They were having a store-wide 30-60% off sale, so I didn't limit myself to the half-off annex this time. My options were (clockwise starting with the purple):

1. Purple rayon crepe. (Not red, but it was the only rayon crepe in the annex).
2. Christian Dior red rayon/silk blend. Really nice but a bit orange-y in real life (and this is the rare case where I didn't want orange.
3. Deep red silk crepe with a hint of stretch.
4. Lovely soft thin 100% wool crepe.
5. Lovely soft thick wool/nylon/stretch blend crepe.

The wool/nylon/stretch was my initial favorite—I just love working with wool, whether sewing or knitting—and would have been perfect for the bodice... but it was too thick and didn't have enough drape for the skirt. I went back the next day to get the red silk crepe stretch mainly because it looked so awesome when I stood in front of a mirror trying to pretend the bolt was a real dress.

And there you have it. So: who wins the showdown? Which dress would YOU make? I've already chosen, but I'm not telling—yet.

P.S. This is a case where a croquis really comes in handy, as I demonstrated recently in my little "How to Dress Your Digital Dress Form" demo/tutorial video (see related blog post for references, tips and details):

More Vintage Pattern Stashing & Destashing: 1940s edition!

My recently acquired crayon-colored assortment of 40s pattern gorgeousness

Stashing:

OK, I think I have a problem. Perhaps stemming from a frustrating deficit of actual sewing progress lately? (I do have my machine working again, though and promise to have several finished objects for you this weekend!).

But when I spied the above lot of eight early 1940s DuBarry patterns on eBay, I couldn't resist putting in an eensy little bid, even though they will all require grading up a size or two. And to my surprise, I "won." (If you can really call adding to my over-squeezed pattern drawer "winning").

Really, could YOU say no to a princess-seamed button-backed peplum two-piece dress like DuBarry 5505?

Note how the lines of the bodice seams continue in the gored skirt. And I love the gathering coming from the yoked neckline (though I'd probably make it a very narrow band--it's too high for me as is). Yellow isn't my color, but I love the red.

And how about DuBarry 5525? Isn't it wonderful how the sweetheart neckline is mirrored in the hip yoke?

On the more nursing-friendly front, there's DuBarry 5613--it's technically a "beach/brunch coat", but it looks like a wrap dress to me:

And button fronts provide far better access than button backs:

Is it just me, or are these 1940s DuBarry illustrations particularly lovely? I'm just crazy about the style and styling of these envelopes... well, aside from the fact that they exclusively feature tall skinny white ladies--but that's a blog post for another time.

So yes, I am a bad, bad girl.

Destashing:

HOWEVER! As promised in my previous pattern stashing/destashing post, I have made excellent progress towards destashing any and all patterns that I am 75% certain I will never sew, either for style or size reasons. No matter HOW enticing their seductive little illustrations!

The first step was donating a box of 24 patterns to Pattern Rescue (which I discovered via Color Kitten). They were mostly 70s and 80s patterns that while fun, would be too much trouble to sell, but I tried to put in a few nicer ones as well.

The second was setting up a Polka Dot Overload Etsy shop and photographing and inspecting all the more saleable 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s patterns. I'm still working on this--I've only managed to list 7 so far (though I've already sold one! hurrah!). Some of the ones I've managed to get up so far:

Simplicity 2876. It's a glamourous 1949 V-Neck gown... but despite my grading ambitions, there is no way I'm doing the work to get a 30" bust pattern over my 41" bust -- that would involve going up three sizes to my 36" high bust, and THEN doing a major FBA.

Simplicity 2309. Lovely 1948 pleated bias-cut skirt with side pockets. But even before my waist vanished under my uterus, it was nowhere near 26 inches.

Mail Order 1447. This 1960s shirtwaist was featured in my "A Life in (Mail-Order) Patterns" post--the tabs and pockets are SO cute, and it's in a 35-inch bust... but it's a half-size, I have MANY other shirtwaist patterns, and I'm a relatively tall girl.

Style 2876, 1970. This was HARD--it's a 38-inch bust and I LOVE the seaming (and these hairstyles--almost a Princess Leia look, no?)... on someone else. Repeated dressing-room experimentation in vintage stores has proven that these clean-lined high-necked mod dresses just Do Not Work on my curvy figure.

Photographing the envelopes is quick... but assessing the condition, determining whether all pieces are present and cut/uncut, setting a fair price, writing descriptions and adding tags? Not so quick. Now I know why so many vintage patterns seem to be so pricy! That's real work!

But I figure if I can list them all now, it'll be relatively quick to ship them if they sell while I'm on maternity leave. And any extra cash will certainly come in handy for laundry money to wash all those cloth diapers...