I recently found and marathoned through the fabulous Amazon show ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’! Its a funny show, with lots of beautiful costuming, set in 1957ish. The main character in particular has some amazing dresses.
Pink Suit: I love how nicely fitted this dress is, and the little scalloped edges on the jacket are toooo damn cute! I do wish that they had shown the dress without the matching coat though.
Green Satin: Such a cute neckline! I strongly considered making this dress, although I likely would have gone with a much more casual fabric. I clearly need more matching hats in my wardrobe, it looks so polished!
Protest Blue: Here’s another where I wish they had shown the dress separately from the jacket! It’s a really cute jacket at least, with an interesting ‘wrap’ detail at the waist, and a sort of buckle band at the back.
Stand-up Plaid: I kept staring at the black strap over the bust in this scene, it’s so curious! I almost never wear such high necked garments, but I could make an exception for this one…
Working Shoulder Darts: I thought that the shoulder dart detail was very interesting on this work suit, I don’t know that I have seen anything like it before!
Working Green: I love all the little flowers/bow details she wears on all of her work outfits! It’s neat how they designer made her work wear clearly different from her typical day clothing.
Sexy Suit: Ya, for real, this is an amazing suit. I want it. (And her figure to match ;p )
Powder Blue Work Dress: LOVE THE BOW. It reminds me a bit of airline attendants? The dress is very close to a few of my real life dresses, even in color! I should add a sassy bow to mine :D
And so many more outfits, some on screen for only a few seconds!
I knew that I wanted to try to make one of Mrs. Maisel’s dresses, they had such interesting details! I eventually decided on her red evening dress:
Red Evening Dress
It has a cute little notch in the neckline at the bust, a false wrap front, and is one of the only garments in the show referenced by name.
“What are you going to wear?”
“Why?”
“Wear your red dress.”
Eyeroll, “That’s an evening dress!”
“It’s dinner. That’s evening…”
I spent some time re-watching the scenes with this dress, and found a few neat construction details:
The shoulder seam continues down the top of the sleeve, and there is no visible armscye seam! I wish I could get clearer shots of this dress!
The side seam for the skirt and bodice match up.
There is a itty bitty little seam where the ‘sleeve’ and bust meet. I thought I was imagining it at first, it’s very hard to see details on this shade of red!
Such a cute fluffy petticoat!
This image made me realize that there’s probably a dart on the back pattern, but I didn’t notice until I was rather far into my project, and I couldn’t adjust at that point :/
This picture doesn’t really add any information, but it was a neat promo shot I found, this shot isn’t in the show.
Occasionally, a tiny view of her foundation garment would show. Other than knowing it’s white, we don’t get much information about it. In the show, she jokes about women wearing ‘bras, corsets, and girdles’ while wearing this dress, so maybe that’s what she’s wearing? Also, it looks like the lining of her bodice is red.
Her bust is quite pointed in this dress, I ended up having to round it out. Not because I object to a pointy bust, but all of my vintage style bras would be visible with a neckline this low :(
So pretty right?! I looked for a pattern to get me started, but didn’t find anything that quite fit my fancy, so I decided to drape a pattern myself. I am beyond rusty at draping, but I gave it my best :p
The actual ‘dress diary’ part of this outfit is split into four videos. First up is the drape:
Which did not exactly go well….
Not lookin’ good there kiddo…
But it got a little better with the second mock-up:
And then I worked on the skirt pattern in part 3:
And then the final video, working on the ‘real’ fabric! If you only watch one video, I’d recommend this one :D
My photos came out a little (a lot) over exposed, and the weather prevented me from getting more, so I’ll have to do nicer photos another time! In the mean time, here’s a few pictures of the finished outfit!
Innards! The waist has not been finished yet, I think I’d like to add a waist tape :D
Those are not sexy stitches :p The outside of the gusset looks much better than the inside!
The invisible zipper is very pretty, although I will almost certainly have to replace it soon, it’s just too delicate.
Butt pleats!
(Mostly) finished dress!
Top of the sleeve!
Wow, this is not a flattering view :p
