Making a Marilyn Monroe Style dress

A few weeks ago one of the first year photography students asked me to make a dress for one of his projects, with help from my tutors. The original image he worked from was by Nick Knight .

I had to recreate the dress based on this image 

As I already finished any outstanding work and independent projects I had time to make it for him, we decided to make the dress in two pieces as it only had to look similar to the original dress on the photo, the first thing that we toiled was the top section.

To do this we draped the fabric over a mannequin that was (sort of) a similar size to our model and cutting  out the shape that we wanted the top to be. Once I had this shape I then drew around this on pattern paper including the dart and a 1cm seam allowance. I then cut 4 of these out so each side had a lining, I sewed all of the darts and then the two pieces together for each side and then bagged them out.
I then pinned then to the mannequin and sewed a line at the bottom to hold the two sides together. 

For the skirt I borrowed a circle skirt pattern from one of the degree students and then used this to make a double circle skirt by sewing the pieces together at the side seams.

Once I finished the toile we found we had to add a long waist band as there was a gap at the waist so I made a pattern for that based on my models waist measurements, then the photographer gave me the money to buy the fabric. 

To save fabric I cut out one piece of the skirt out at a time and then placed the next piece as close as possible going in the opposite way as the previous piece to save any wastage 

I then sewed the skirt together adding a concealed zip in the centre back. 

I then sewed the waistband together using two layers as the fabric is very sheer.

I then pinned and sewed the waistband to the skirt 

Then I used one o the domestic overlockers to sew a really small overlocking to hem the skirt

After I finished the dress I tea stained the fabric for a few seconds as I didn't want to wreck the dress by  making it too dark. 

I then hung the the pieces out too dry, unfortunately I started to hail  shortly after(so dedicated I even fell over bringing these in) so I let them dry over a chair by the heater.

Sneak peck at the photo shoot :

The photographer is now editing the photos and I will post as soon as he has sent them.

Thanks for reading! 

Jenny xxx