In my third year of University the first project was to make a costume from one of Janet Arnolds patterns of Fashion books. The project was part of a Janet Arnold Competiton. I chose to make a day dress dated 1866-7 from her book Patterns of Fashion 2. The dress is made of grey satin silk trimmed with bright blue silk fringing and piping. The dress consisted of a bodice and skirt joined at the waist accompanied with a small waist belt. The dress was decorated with double piping and silk fringing on the bodice.
I chose to make the dress all in white instead of the actual colour of the dress, this was because I wanted to concentrate on the construction of the garment and the techniques used instead of getting it the right colour. I also couldn't find an exact match of fabric that was affordable to buy. The fabric I used to make the dress was white cotton and I chose white satin to make the double piping. I enjoyed making the silk fringing on the bodice I did this by spending a lot of time fraying silk. I also spent a lot time making the small waist belt it was all originally made by hand, so I constructed it in the same way, I really enjoyed the delicate hand sewing that was involved. The main structure of the dress is machine sewn with sections of the inside of the bodice hand sewn and all the decoration is sewn on by hand.
