The idea for this basically started with this black linen (a remnant from my favourite fabric shop in my home town) and I immediately knew I wanted to make a summery little dress with a twist. One of my resolutions for my sewing is to add more interesting details to my garments to take advantage of the fact that I can make whatever I want. I was coming back to the idea of a reversible dress but wasn’t sure in what shape. A strappy dress, something with sleeves? Somehow there are not a lot of reversible dress patterns out there, back to front that is. Since I was keen on doing some drafting I decided to develop something myself and finally settled on a style when I came across this dress from TOAST:
Source: TOAST
While this dress is not intended to be reversible, it had the perfect features, a wrap v-neck and a boat neck. So what better pattern to choose as a base than the Allie Olson Highlands Wrap Dress? Since I have made it twice before I knew I liked the fit of the wrap front. What then followed was a not-so-scientific approach to amending the pattern. First, I tried on my orange linen wrap dress with the v-neck to the back. Sure the neck was way too high but it gave me a fairly good idea of how much I had to lower the neckline, where to move the shoulder seam and how much width I needed to add at the side seam.
Once I had settled on the major changes needed, I cut out the bodice pieces ignoring any darts. In the original pattern the front bodice pieces don’t have any waist seam so I cut them off at the same level has the back piece and just worked on fitting the bodice. Through a lot of try-ons, playing around with the side seam and the armscye, I managed to get a surprisingly good fit. It definitely helps to not have a big bust otherwise the fitting would have been more problematic.
Happy with the bodice, I added a waistband, mainly because the bodice ended too high. Then I tested how it would look with an elastic threaded all around through the waistband. While the elastic waistband is one of my favourite features on the original dress, it didn’t work in this case due to the bulk of the wrap. So I scrapped that idea and decided to only use ties for waist definition. For the skirt I wanted to try a new shape for me. Instead of the straight skirt of the Highlands Wrap Dress, I drafted a slight A-line skirt, similar to the inspiration dress. To ensure that I was able to tie them in the front or the back, regardless of which way around I was wearing the dress, I made the ties super long. The dress is closed with two teal buttons, one at each side, which I found at a local haberdashery here in Colmar.
So what about the final dress? I’m really happy with how well it works as a reversible dress. Both sides are completely wearable. The v-neck wrap is slightly lower on this version than the Highlands dress, since I moved the shoulder seam. However, it is still decent worn this way around. My favourite way to wear it is with the boat neck in the front. That way it’s a classic little black dress from the front, with a little bit more interest in the back through the deep v.
If I make this again, the one thing I would change is to remove the waistband and cut bodice and skirt as one piece or lower the waist seam and attach the skirt directly to the bodice. As it is, the waist is a little bit bulky and I have to be careful with how I wrap the ties, so that the waistband doesn’t peek out. All in all though, it was a very successful experiment. I feel quite chic in my (first ever) little black dress. The dress had it’s first outing for a dinner at a Michelin star restaurant here on the wine route a couple of weeks ago (a present for my husband for his 30th from my parents). The photos were taken this week when I wore it for a dinner out, here in Colmar.
