Vogue 1410 Lynn Mizono Winter Floral Dress

This is the third time I have made my adapted version of the Lynn Mizono dress. The previous two versions, which are slightly more faithful to the pattern, appear in my 2016 sewing retrospective but were made pre-blog. As this is a favourite pattern for a stylish dress with individuality, as well as only two pattern pieces, combined with a gorgeous fabric I thought it deserved a blog post all its own to explain how I got from V1410 to the Winter Floral dress.

The finished garment

On a very changeable Sunday in December I wore the dress in both its lengths. The optimism in the morning for a warm day (and the shorter length dress) didn't entirely eventuate, with the sunshine being no match for the cool sea breeze (long length dress).

However there was enough sun for this delicate English flower who needs to be careful in the harsh NZ sun. It is not often I venture outside without sunscreen but the weekend in Westport was much sunnier than forecast and I was caught out with insect repellent but no sunscreen. It doesn't help that I am allergic to most sunscreen so was very wary about buying some from the supermarket. Choosing to suffer from a bit too much sun rather than itchy skin for a couple of weeks was a definite error of judgement. Worst sunburn in years and months later I am still ultra careful about exposing my décolletage to the sun.

Back to the dress, versatility is its real beauty making it ideal for a travel wardrobe be it a weekend away or a longer trip. It is also a great fabric and the combination garners compliments from strangers, which is always an uplifting experience.

Carefully executed selfies taken at the Doubletree Downtown Houston
Jack and Charlie dress in the shorter length versus Winter Floral tunic with leggings

The fabric

A wonderful tana lawn from Liberty of London in a design called Winter Floral in the red colourway. This fabric was purchased from Liberty in person during our trip to the UK in May 2018.

Liberty describe this fabric as: "Taking inspiration from the joyful splendour of traditional African prints, Winter Floral depicts an array of dancing, sinuous botanicals. From the Garden of Temptation collection it offers a visual feast of rich, symbolic imagery. Inspired by the works of Hieronymus Bosch, it captures a hidden fairy-tale world of thick foliage and luscious fruits, presented with a delectably twisted sense of humour. The colour palette is hallucinatory and opulent, with creeping tropical fronds and acidic paisleys sitting alongside blushing, light-toned hedgerow flora and fauna. Dive into an aesthetic, allegorical other world of arcane temptations and decadent decay."

The pattern

Vogue describes this pattern as Very loose-fitting, pullover dress is sleeveless and has very narrow hem finish on scoop neckline and armholes, front and back pleats, inside button/buttonholes forming drape and three adjustable lengths, French seams, and narrow hem. Purchased lock and elastic cord forms front drape.

The adjustable lengths give you a mid-calf or above knee dress or a mid thigh tunic.



The pattern alterations

This pattern is a TNT having been made twice before without sleeves. From the very beginning I loved the idea of a skirt that could be buttoned on the inside for different lengths. The fullness on top created with the gathers of the elastic cord to form the front drape and the full skirt are not my best look. I really do need to follow the wisdom of a fitted half and a looser half otherwise the outfit closely resembles a sack. Given my attraction to a skirt that could be worn at different lengths the obvious change was for a more fitted bodice to provide the necessary balance to the fullness of the skirt. When I first made this dress I used the bodice from Silhouette Patterns #400 Traditional Blouse which has fish eye darts for waist shaping front and back. These fish eye darts can either be sewn as darts or as pleats similar to the original dress design. The Winter Floral dress has the darts and the Jack and Charlie version has pleats.

I always trace my patterns rather than cut up the original. For my version of V1410 the bodice of Silhouette Patterns #400 Traditional Blouse was matched at the waist and centre front to V1410 and the new pattern traced blending the two parts together at the side seams. Essentially I blended from the size 10 at the bust (40") to the size 6 just below the waist (49") and continued at the size 6 to the hem.

By matching the two patterns at the waist it lengthened the bodice and lowered the V1410 bust point 2". This is not unusual for me I generally lengthen the bodice and lower the bust point at least 1.5" on most Vogue patterns.

For the sleeveless version I narrowed the shoulder strap 1" in from the shoulder point and raised the armhole ⅝". This gave me a slightly cut in strap on the shoulder and the appropriate bra coverage.

Original V1410 front pattern piece underneath
Left: SP400 on top; Right: adapted sleeveless V1410 on top

Original V1410 back pattern piece underneath
Left: SP400 on top; Right: adapted sleeveless V1410 on top

For the Winter Floral dress I wanted sleeves but was too lazy to create a new pattern piece. So the pattern piece for V1410 was placed on the fabric and overlaid with my trusty Silhouettes Pattern #400 to cut the fabric with the necessary changes for sleeves (shoulders widened, armhole lowered). The sleeve from SP#400 was used for the short sleeve.

The sewing

I was worried about the Liberty tana lawn not being opaque enough as a dress so I underlined it with a plain red cotton lawn. The reason I underlined rather than lined the dress was to retain the buttons/buttonhole in the side seam that enable the dress to be worn at various lengths and I wasn't sure how I could do this if I had the dress with a separate lining.

I sewed the dress and the interlining at the neck edge, trimming, pressing and understitching before turning wrong sides together. Now that the neck edge was neatly finished the outer fabric and interlining were treated as one - the darts were sewn and the side seams were sewn with French seams.

The sleeves are not interlined. They were attached to the bodice with French seams. The sleeve hem was turned up and machine sewn.

A buttonhole is made in both side seams just above the hem before the hem is sewn in place. Once the buttonholes had been added the hem was turned up and hand stitched in place.

The six buttons were hand sewn to the side seams as indicated by the pattern markings in my motel room in San Francisco. The dress was then worn to travel to Portland the next day.

The outfit of the day

Out and about on the west coast of New Zealand wearing bare feet or United Nude Lev Wrap low heel in red. With warmer or cooler temperatures depending on the wind this was a fabulous choice of outfit as it could be worn as a short and long dress at various times through the day.

Cape Foulwind

Cape Rocks and a visiting Weka

Charleston

The Truman Track

Out and about at the International Quilt Festival

As already mentioned this is such a great dress to travel with it can be worn at the shorter length during the day and then lengthened at night or it can be worn as a tunic with leggings.

Left outside the Hilton Americas hotel: Untouched World Moonless Lofty Merino Cardi,
Jack and Charlie Dress and United Nude Rico Boot Neon Red Disco
Right outside the George R Brown Convention centre: V1410 Winter Floral dress,
DKNY Navy & Milk Dot Leggings and United Nude Zink Patch Mid Pop Mix booties