This is the last Simplicity 1577 (for a while, not the LAST ONE EVER), but this one? Is my absolute favorite. I never get tired of this dress:
BLACK SEERSUCKER. It’s the best fabric ever. I wish I’d bought all of this there ever was. This collar has a little bit of bad roll to it. (Oh! I tried Kathleen’s super collar instructions and it worked beautifully. Sneak peek picture here.)
The zipper is just, eh. A C:
The pockets and the collar are lined with black batiste — here’s the pocket:
And the collar (you can see the ripples from the seersucker):
And the back view:
I wear this either with black Justin boots or with these European grandma shoes that I searched for FOREVER and finally found on Etsy. (That’s the seller’s picture I pinned.) I wore them a couple of times and then the ancient glue holding the soles together gave up the ghost, so I had to have them resoled. (TOTALLY WORTH IT.) And sometimes I wear this dress with these ancient J. Crew ankle boots for maximum Dickensian glamour.
I wore this dress in Paris way back in 2011 and got stopped on the Champs Élysées by someone who asked me directions … in French. (NB: I do not speak French.) I figure that’s probably the best endorsement this dress could ever get. (I was actually able to give directions … they were asking where the Georges V was, and I’d just passed it and thought, “Oh hey, that’s the Georges V, that I always read about in novels!” I answered with some “straight on thataway” gestures and I think I was understood.)
A Dress A Day 
C’est trés chic!
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First, thanks so much for the 100 days of dresses! They are fabulous fun each day!
A small and silly question – what kind of notions stash (and most especially zipper stash) do you keep on hand? I stand in awe of the dress started at 4:30 to wear dancing that evening…
Thanks again, Erin – you wouldn’t consider making it a couple hundred?
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Thanks Sian!
I tend to buy an assortment of zippers from zipperstop.com (http://bit.ly/14Hk7DM) every six months or so, and I can usually find one that is a “good enough” match. I’ll also buy zippers and bias tape if I see them at yard sales, etc. I buy twill tape for waistband reinforcement at Britex every couple of months, or whenever I want an excuse to go in and drool over the fabric. 🙂
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Shoes: oh my dear, you need to know about Fluevogs. http://www.fluevog.com.
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Oh I do! And they’re gorgeous! But I’ve never found a pair that really fit me well. 😦
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That zipper looks better than a C to me. Maybe it’s just ’cause they’re both black but I don’t think so.
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That zipper looks better than a C to me. Maybe it’s just ’cause they’re both black but I don’t think so. 🙂
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Just wondering, as your zippers seem to give you much consternation, why you persevere with invisible zippers in vintage styles when you don’t seem very happy with your results? Just wondering….
Loving the series by the way. If only I had one hundred dresses to choose from! All made by me. That’s so self-sufficient.
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Someday I will make them perfectly, so perfectly that they’re really invisible! And then things will be wonderful. 🙂 Mostly it’s just me whining — I’ve tried all the other kinds of zippers/fastenings and I still prefer invisible zippers, frustrating as they are.
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fair enough. I do like the ‘galloping horse’ comment in today’s post comments – that should be the motto of all self-critical seamstresses!
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