Simplicity 8014 denim shirt dress - Part 2: Toile

MingMakes

9 minutes ago

4 min read

This is the second of 3 posts about the Simplicity 8014 denim dress I made, by adapting my bodice block and drafting various elements. In this post I explain what decisions I considered after making the toile and the changes I made. My first post is about the design process which you can read here. The third post is about the construction which will be published shortly.

Sleeveless toile

I started with a toile without the sleeves to check the fit.

Here are photos with a belt from another dress:

I was very pleased with the toile overall. Being based on my bodice block, the fit was the best of all my toiles so far. After discussing this with Sarah, she suggested the following adjustments.

Observations

Slight tightness at the back indicated by the arrows.
Suggestion: Let out side seam from just above the bust dart to below the waist.
Top button looks just a touch too high for flattering visual proportions
Suggestion: Lower the top button by 1/4"
Length is too long. I had originally lengthened it by 8cm thinking it was too short but it looked a bit frumpy at this length.
Suggestion: Experiment with shortening the hem at different intervals

Adjustments

(Apologies that I don't have photos of my toile after these adjustments)

I let out the side seams from just above the bust dart to below the waist. This helped a little but I could still see the tightness at the back, although it didn't feel tight. I let it out a little further up towards the armhole but only as far as the seam line so as not to change the armhole or sleeve.
I lowered the top button my 1/2" which looked more flattering.
Having originally lengthened the hem by 8cm, I reduced it again by 6cm which looked better.

Having shown these to Sarah, her keen eye for flattering proportions encouraged me to assess this in more detail, by:

Looking at the position of the belt and wanting to ensure this is where I would wear it, perhaps it looked a little low compared to my waist.
Trying the hem at different lengths. She felt the proportions weren't quite right, as the top half looked too similar in height to the lower half.

I lowered the hem by 1cm increments. Here they are going from short to long.

The differences are subtle but I found that the two lengths in the middle looked best. I decided to go with the longer of the two (the third photo) as the dress tended to ride up a little with the belt in place.

Buttons

Having now decided on the position of the top button, I could plan the position of the remaining buttons. The reason I planned the button placement at this stage rather than the end was because I had a limited amount of my facing fabric. This meant I would likely be piecing it together, and I didn't want a seam to be positioned where a buttonhole was.

The next button down from the top was around the bust which made an interval of 6.5cm. I continued with this interval down the dress which conveniently ended up with an odd number of buttons, which Sarah had advised tends to look more pleasing to the eye than an even number. The spacing was perhaps slightly on the tight side but I didn't want the button around the bust to be any lower and so this fixed the spacing for the remainder of the buttons.

Belt

The pattern was for a simple tie belt but I initially wanted to make a D-ring belt for the following reasons:

I find a single knot isn't secure enough, and didn't think a bow would suit the look I was after
A double knot doesn't look that great to me, although there are plenty of videos on Instagram for better looking knots
A D-ring belt was relatively simple to sew
I saw some antique brass D-rings that I thought would echo the gold print of my facing fabric quite nicely

To determine the length of the belt, I used one I already own and wrapped it around me to replicate the D-ring closure.

The tail looked a little too long and at this stage I wasn't sure if I wanted a hanging tail or just to have it tucked, but I wanted to wait until the dress was finished to determine the final length, as it may fit differently with the weight of the denim. I certainly wouldn't want it longer so I made mine to the same length and would adjust from there once finished.

This belt was the same width as my D-rings and I was happy with the look of this width. Another thing I liked was the slightly rounded end which gave it a softer look that would echo the curve of the D-rings and the shirt tail hem so I wanted to replicate this.

Similar to my facing pieces, I used contrasting fabric on the reverse of the belt that would show where the belt was turned back through the D rings.

In the end, I decided to go with a different design due to the odd look of the small section of contrast fabric as it was folded back. More details will follow in my construction post.