French Slip, 1930s

For a change of pace, I decided to make some 20th century garments. The first is a "French slip" from a 1930s pattern I found at Mrs. Depew Vintage. It's not much to look at (especially on the hanger, as my dress form still out of sorts) but I found some aspects of the construction novel, and should probably document them for future projects.

The first point of interested is the pattern itself. Instead of full-size sheets with pattern pieces in different sizes, this pattern used graduated rulers at set angles. The whole pattern fits on a single piece of paper; you just select the ruler for your bust size, and use it to measure out each point on the pattern. Connect the dots, and you have a full-sized pattern.

I like this a whole lot better than taping together sheets of paper.

The downside, of course, is the pattern grading. The further you are from the model bust size, the more  every measurement increases or decreases: the garment's shoulder, waist, hip, torso length, skirt length, and skirt width are all directly scaled off the bust. Obviously, humans do not automatically get taller and hippier with increased bust size, so that created some grading issues which needed to be adjusted. By comparing the rulers, my pattern draft started out 4" longer, and 8" wider around the hem than it would have been if I were a B (of otherwise the same dimensions).

So, I ended up removing 4" from the skirt length, and 1/2" from the torso. I also adjusted the bust darts to take up the extra fabric sitting along the neck edge. To ensure that the whole garment could be slipped on over the head, I also added some ease into the waist.

I like how this seam turned out.

I made the whole slip out of silk habotai (China silk). I don't usually work with such light weights, except for lining parasols. It wasn't as bad to work with as I remember; it's also not quite as liquid in its behavior as a silk chiffon or charmeuse, which was a relief. Since this is a slip, I pre-washed the fabric, which I don't normally do with silks. 

The construction was straightforward: machine-sew the darts, join the pieces with machined French seams, and hem the edges by hand. Those could have been machined, but I don't care for visible top-stitching.

Not the most exciting view.

I considered using ribbon or lace scraps for the straps, but didn't have anything that suited this shade of pink. I instead used scraps of the same silk.