Skip to main content

A dress for me

During my daughter's winter break from college, I dragged her to the Museum of the City of New York to see an exhibit on Art Deco in New York. It was a sweet little exhibit. But inexplicably, in the middle of the exhibit was a selection of 1940's and '50's dresses. They were beautiful, but not Art Deco. One of the dresses in the exhibit was by the designer Valentina, a girlfriend of Greta Garbo. The dress was a mind blowingly simple white dirndl dress made out of wool gauze. I especially loved the deep ( maybe 18 inch) doubled hem. I loved how pared down the dress was. I also loved how it looked entirely contemporary, even though it was about 60 years old.


A few days later I found some wool gauze in black at Paron. I thought that it would be wonderful to make myself a wool gauze over dress to wear over a full slip. I thought that it would be a nice thing to wear at my son's Bar Mitzvah.

My friend Jackie had gone to Vietnam over the summer and I asked her to buy me some fabric so I could play. She brought back an array of fabulous silks in reds and browns all with complex stripe patterns woven into the fabric. I began a dress. I was nearly finished today. It was OK., but too busy and too summery. So today I began making another dress out of some striped tie silks from www.fabricmart.fabrics.com. That second dress ( now a bodice has a great 1940's vibe but it too felt too busy and too loud.

So I pulled out the wool gauze again and took another look at it.I folded it and cut two arm holes, put my arms through the arm holes and wrapped the fabric around me. It just felt right. I hemmed all of the raw edges and then added that same deep hem that I saw on the Valentina. I made a full slip out of some black tricot. When I belt the dress and drape the collar over my arms--it just looks good. You can't quite get the full effect with my arm-less dress form. You have to trust me on this one.


I also realize that most of my favorite clothing can be worn as pajamas as well as out on the street.


I feel a little badly about the false start time spent on the two other dresses. ( I have so much stuff that I ought to be doing today) But I will probably complete them both in time to wear this summer. I also think of this as a mental health day for me in the midst of the storm.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Welmoed SissonMarch 25, 2009 at 5:01 PM

    Sarah, that's just awesome!!!! I'll bet it looks smashing on you. Wear it with pride!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cindy March 26, 2009 at 11:31 AM

    How do you do that? You just have an eye for it. Lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  3. lisa radanoJune 6, 2013 at 11:53 AM

    tres chic!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee.  If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it.    My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid.  I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed.   A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee  and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...
1 comment
Read more

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

 I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night.  I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1)  אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה  God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2)  אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר   May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3)  יָאֵר יְהֹ...
8 comments
Read more

A Passover loss

 My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of  linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin.  You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...
2 comments
Read more