Isn't this a great dress? Wait — it gets better:
It's convertible! Diane kindly re-sent me these images after I managed to lose them somehow in the charnel house that is my email inbox, sparked by the discussion of "day-to-evening" overskirts in yesterday's comments.
Oh, and check out the detail …
So neat! So efficient! So … button-y! Thanks, Diane!
[Sorry for the late posting; I'm now in Camden, Maine, where I'm talking at the Pop!Tech conference this weekend. If you want to see me pontificate about stuff that has *nothing whatsoever* to do with dresses, you can watch the whole conference live at live.poptech.org. You can even ask questions of the presenters through the site! Good times.]
A Dress A Day 
I love this dress! It’s every working woman’s (which I’m not, but still..) dream come true! Go from work to a date with the swish of the hips! – and 5-10 minutes of buttoning of course. 🙂 I LOVE IT!
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I’m a sewing novice, but I feel like I need to ask- where can I get this pattern???
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Does the slim skirt stay on, or is it interchangeable with the swishy skirt?
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I love it! Talk about an appropriate use of technology! (If you count buttons and sewing count as technology, which I do). I’d even break my “no navy” rule for this one.
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a Peter Pan collar! Tell me it has pockets and I’ll have to make one. I just recently received a box full of old patterns. In it I found a mailer catalog sheet of dress patterns from Prominent Designer Printed Patterns. There were different dresses and skirts by different designers such as Mr. Blackwell, Ardanti, Mr. Mort, Oleg Cassini, Brignace, etc. They all have different detaiing and features. I really want the one from Brigance and Kleibacker. There is no date but I would estimate it at either being late 50’s early 60’s (some full skirts but not Diorfull no minis but lots of wiggle).Most are sheaths with detail, jackets, interesting necklines, and pockets.
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Julia, it’s not a “slim skirt;” it’s a one-piece (all right, maybe it has a seam at the hips, but whatever) sheath dress, with a row of buttons at the hip line. So it’s always a narrow-skirted dress, which sometimes has a full skirt buttoned onto it.Cookie, the nice thing is, even if that pattern isn’t available, you don’t need the pattern. You can take any straight-dress pattern (sheath or, for me, princess line, seamed at the hip or not), and put a row of Big Decorative Buttons at the hipline. You then make your favorite full skirt pattern; make sure the waistband is wide enough and long enough to take the Big Decorative Buttons (you can add both length and width with your Magic Ruler, if necessary), put buttonholes that fit the Big Decorative Buttons all around the waistband of the full skirt, and Presto! Your own version of the Magic Button Cocktail Dress.You could do the Easy Cheatin’ Version: You could take a store-bought one-piece sheath dress, and add a row of buttons around the hips. Then go ahead and make Your Favorite Full Skirt Pattern, With Wide Buttonholed Waistband, and you’re all set.You can also do the Easiest Cheatin’ Version, which I do, quite often, in the winter: If you’re wearing a sheath dress, you can just drop a full skirt on top of it. The top of the sheath dress then becomes the “blouse” part of a “blouse-and-matching-slip” outfit.
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My aunt had a similar outfit in the ’50’s….only her skirt covered shorts!
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I loooove the top of this dress. And the colour is just right.
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This is one fab dress! Enjoy Camden – our family used to vacation near there and go there for shopping/treats!
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I love this dress! I love sheath styles and never ever thought about adding buttons so I can attach an overskirt. Also glad you posted about livepoptech.com. Looked you up and enjoyed reading your bio and seeing the person behind the blog.
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Ooh, so exciting to see my dress on Dress a Day! Thanks, Erin! The odd thing about this dress is that it’s not very chic to demonstrate its unique convertibility while wearing, so I thought I’d share it in pictures with people who would appreciate it. The overskirt is lined in Pellon, so it holds that nice, drapey shape. As sophisticated as it is, it’s a juniors dress, late 40s to early 50s. Imagine finding something like this in the juniors section today!I love Camden. Enjoy!
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“If you count buttons and sewing as technology, which I do”.Ooh, Nora. I’ve got to praise you again.
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Count me in, I love this dress too. Wish I had an occasion to wear such a dress.
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If I were going to do this dress (and I might) I’d make a much fuller skirt and it would be open at the center the way yesterday’s dress is. I think I’d all around give it a more dragon lady feel.
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The full skirted version really slims down the midriff–oh, so chic and smooth! A thing of real beauty!
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Truly truly scrumptious… 🙂 This goes on the to do list for sure!
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The buttoned skirt reminds me of my elementary school uniform back in the 70s! The skirt attached to a camisole, then you wore a sailor-type blouse over it. I always wondered why they didn’t just make the camisole the blouse–why the double layer? I would have loved wearing this dress to school!
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I love the top of this dress. Im a sucker for peter pan collars.I dont wear navy much at all. I would wear this.
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Love this idea, and I’m in robinson’s camp. I’d leave the full skirt split down the middle to show the narrow skirt underneath. –Lydia, also in with the “no navy but this” crowd
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Am I the only one who thinks that line of buttons would do unfortunate things to my already unfortunate hips?Which is unfortunate, because I think that dress if fabulous.
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What is it with navy? I mean, I agree. But isn’t it strange that so many of us who follow ADAD feel this way about a color?
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I don’t like navy, either.
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No. We don’t need to emphasize our hips.
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Actually, if you look closely, that line of buttons hits _just above_ the fullest part of the hips — just far enough above to make it look like the widest part of the body, but actually hit at a slightly narrower point. A good distracting trick! It might make it wearable even for those who don’t want to draw attention to the hips.
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Gee whiz, that is neato.
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This is one of the smartest looking dresses I’ve seen in years, and with a Peter Pan collar, no less. I’d wear this in a nano-second. So innocent and “SEXY” at the same time.
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Sorry for the second post….I just realized that this button-on overskirt could be SO versatile. The full skirt could be a little shorter, and even maybe in a sheer fabric like lace or burnout velvet. Or, the straight under skirt could be quite a bit shorter (think mini-skirt). Whip that top one off and “va va voom”!
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When “Great Performances” on PBS did “South Pacific” I noticed the same trick on the dress that Reba McEntire was wearing. There was a chiffon overskirt buttoned to the regular dress to make it an evening dress. Very useful.
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