Mad Men-esque Dress: New Look 6968

Do you watch Mad Men ("MM")? I am sure most of you sewists are responsible for the spark of the Mad Men sewing explosion on the worldwide web - check out the Sew Weekly MM Challenge  and Julia Bobbin's MM Dress Challenge. I wish they show the series in Malaysia soon but I am already quite fascinated by the MM fashions which are fashion fro the 60's.  I present to you my Mad Men-esque Dress:

This dress has its inspiration from the following pictures taken from the MM series.

I realized that the collar with tie details are popular in the 60′s, certainly my kind of style!
Coincidentally, I have a similar black houndstooth fabric that mimics one of the inspiration pieces.

 
The Facts

Fabric: Black houndstooth cotton fabric at RM18.80/USD6 per yard, 2 yards of 60 inch width required.
Pattern: New Look 6968. I noticed that this is the ‘go-to’ pattern for Mad Men styles

Notions: Invisible Zipper, Interfacing for the faux welt pockets
Time to complete: Didn’t count but as I sewed sporadically over 2 weeks.
First worn: I have worn it to work already!
Wear again? Of course!Total Cost (excluding pattern): Approximately RM43/USD14

Pattern Notes and Thoughts:

I found the instructions for this pattern a little odd.  They asked to underline the bodice but not the skirt portion and later to use facings to finish the collar.  Both methods call for cuting out lining pieces anyway but fully lining as opposed to underlining+facings produces a cleaner and seamless finish, so I did the former. 

Since I also installed an invisible zipper (I got a nifty zipper foot finally!) so I had to change the way I approached the construction of the dress.  I still consulted the instructions for collar, the collar is tricky if you didn’t clearly mark the dots on the collar pieces in the first place; otherwise you should be fine. The tie bow collar detail was what drew me to this pattern at first. I must say it’s very cleverly designed and so cute!  If you noticed, I tied the bow a little differently from the model’s, I flipped it downwards, I think it looks better this way.

The bodice called for a side dart in addition to the general vertical darts on the bottom of the bodice.  I am not sure if the side darts are so relevant because initially it produced so much ease for the bodice.  So I ended up moving up the vertical darts and narrowing them to remove the excess ease.  I think this pattern is meant for a bustier woman, much like the characters in Mad Men (alas, not for me!). I also took in the excess that formed along the armsye, pivoting it into my bust dart, which also meant altering the sleeve cap to fit the change. With all these changes I must say I am pretty happy with the fit.

This is a great sheath dress pattern, I wished that they had instructions and pattern piece for a real welt pocket though instead of just slapping us with a faux one just for decorational purposes. Nevertheless, the faux version is still a great detail to have on the dress. :)

I cut a size 12 as I am usually 10 on top and 12 on the bottom.  With all the abovementioned alterations, I think I needed a size 10 for for the top and a size 14 from waist down (this is non-stretch fabric, as I sewed a 1cm allowance instead of the specified 1.5cm from waist down). Note the envelope says, ‘Close-fitting Dress’!

I couldn’t resist to post a picture of my best new sewing gadget, an inexpensive invisible zipper foot (RM2.80/USD1 bought from local craft store). I have used invisible zippers before but sewed them with a normal zipper foot and wondering before why the results are not exactly ‘invisible’. I even lamented to a seamstress friend that ‘perhaps invisible zippers produced in Malaysia are different from the USA ones, that the former ones are not exactly “invisible”‘.  Hehe! How silly of me, I never thought of getting an invisible zipper foot until someone suggested it in my blog (thank you!).  The result is so professional with one. Now I really need to think of what I should do with my normal zipper stash as I love invisible zippers now. I used Colette’s invisible zipper tutorial and referred to the Colette Sewing Handbook on how to sew the lining to the zipper with a sewing machine.  The only hand sewing I had to do was to slip stitch the lining at the armscye and attach the buttons on the welt pockets.