Sophia’s Transforming Navy Law Ball Dress

Sophia is in her penulimate year Law at Deakin University.  We worked with Sophia to develop the design for her Deakin Law Ball dress for this year.  Starting with images Sophia had found we sketched up the design.  Speaking with Sophia we wanted to make something that could transform so she could also wear it to the after party.  With the tiered skirt this was perfect!  A zipper!  

Construction of Navy Transforming Dress

The tulle layers of the design were a key feature and the lengths needed to be suite for both the full length look and the shorter zipped version. The trick to this was the length of the lining. The zipper was concealed by the hem of the top layer.

Making a strapless bodice stable is important; the choice of lining, stabilisers, interfacing and boning need to considered. The ink blue velveteen and navy cotton drill fabrics sourced from Spotlight was cut in Vogue 8849 . For this velvet bodice the velvet would not carry the weight but this would be the job of the lining. We chose to create the lining in cotton drill that was interfaced and boned.

Four layers of tulle sourced from Remnant Warehouse made up each tier of the skirt and was gathered onto the cotton drill base. The closure of the dress was a welt zipper at the center back with the tulle skirt loose over the top.

Details

Pattern: Vogue 8849
Fabric: Ink blue Velveteen and navy cotton drill from Spotlight, Navy Tulle from Remnant Warehouse 90cm open ended zipper from Premier Group

Transforming – The great unzip

After party ready

Check out Georgia and Erin‘s Law Ball outfits. 

Georgia’s Jungle Green Silk Satin Law Ball Dress

Georgia has studied Law at Deakin University for the last six years.  Also with Erin this would be her last Law Ball.  We wanted to make her dress something special.  We started with some inspiration and Erin’s key criteria for Georgia was she had to choose a colour that wasn’t black.  

Construction of Jungle Green Silk Satin Dress

The bodice for Georgia’s dress started with Simplicity 6408 as it had a beautiful back shape and the gathered front seam created the perfect neckline. The skirt needed to be cut on the bias to create the drape and fall Georgia was after so we used Butterick 5710 as the base for this.

Erin and Georgia went on a fabric hunt and found a beautiful jungle green (not black) silk satin at Rathdowne Fabrics in Brunswick.

The design of the dress evolved from the original sketch. We chose to remove the bottom ruffle section and keep the straps travelling straight over the shoulders.

The thin straps were created using the fabric, creating a thin tube. The strap was turned through using a bobkin sewing needle (a needle without a point used for sewing chunky knits).

The dress was constructed to a point that meant Georgia could try it on. At the fitting we decided that fully lining the bodice would be the best course to finish it off. The lining of the bodice was interfaced with whisperweft interfacing. A piece of plastic boning along the side seam position to provide some stability. The skirt side seams were finished with a french seam to provide a neat finish. This reduced any damage that might be cause to the fabric by placing it through an overlocker.

Details

Pattern: Simplicity 6408 and Butterick 5710
Fabric: Jungle green silk satin from Rathdowne Fabrics

Gold Formal Dress – Law Awards – Lawyers Weekly

Erin was nominated for Lawyers Weekly Law Student of the Year for 2019. This was the 19th annual Australian Law Awards, it is the pinnacle awards program for the nation’s legal profession, recognising the outstanding work being done across major legal practice areas, brilliance at the bar, legal in-house powerhouses, innovators and various firm-led pro bono programs.

The dress was designed from some inspiration images that we collected on a Pinterest board

Construction

 

The bodice was created using a black drill bodice from Vogue 9124 and was self lined with the drill. For support the lining of the bodice was interfaced and boned with encased plastic boning.

For the skirt the drill layer was cut to be circle that fell to below the knees and flat at the waist. The top gold layer was a six panel circle that was gathered into the waist seam.

 

Vogue 9124 - off the shoulder straight dress

The total length of the hem was 11 meters. The drill under layer (3 meters) was finished with overlocking and turned up to encase a black 15cm wide crinoline and the top gold layer was babylocked in black thread (8 meters)

The bows were attached to the dress following the construction and were supported by black crinoline and floating tails.

Details of the Outfit

Pattern: Vogue 9124
Fabric: Gold Fabric from Darn Cheap Fabrics, Black drill from Spotlight, Black Crinoline from Millinery Online.
Shoes: Irregular Choice
Clutch: Olga Berg
Earrings:  Swarovski

The 2019 Lawyers Weekly Law Awards were hosted at The Star in Sydney. See Lauren’s outfit for the event here.

View the dress here wore to the LIV Awards last year in this blog post