This Navy Blue Bustier Dress was the first dress I sewed without using a premade pattern. I designed and constructed it on my own based off of a dress I saw on TV.
The original dress that I was basing my design off of was a red Dolce & Gabana Tulle Bustier Dress, worn by Elizabeth Gilles on Dynasty. The original red dress retailed for around $3000.
Personally, I do not like Dolce & Gabana as I do not agree with some of the things they have said in the past, and I do not plan on ever buying anything from them, but that won't stop me from making a dress I loved based off of their design.
A little secret about this dress is that it is actually two pieces, the bodice and the overskirt. I was originally going to sew it together, but friends advised me to keep it seperate so I could wear the bodice as a top with a pair of shorts or a different skirt.
Overall this project cost me about $50 to make and 8 hours overall.
To help with my construction, I watched some videos online, primarily Micarah Tewer's Sewing videos, and held up pieces of printer paper to my body and drew on it to know where to cut pieces out.
In the end I had 12 pieces plus the straps to sew together and create the bodice. The more I worked on it, the more creative liberty I took on the design to make it my own. A week before the wedding I decided to put the skirt over the bodice rather than under it.
Each cup had a double layer of fabric while the rest of the bodice was only a single layer of fabric with the tops and bottoms top stiched to give it a finished look. The cups were made out of six pieces of fabric each to ensure there was a lot of coverage and to give it the needed shape, and the straps were rolled and sewn over, very easy to make.
I would love to remake this dress in a different color and with higher quality materials (not from Amazon), with the knowledge I have now, I would be able to make it more structurally sound and it could be a more polished version.
The other colors I am considering around red (like the original), purple, or burgundy. Although it is very dressy, I think that it is a very versatile dress that can be worn for many ocassions.
Underneath the tulle skirt was a slip that was just two pieces of my navy stretch satin sewn right sides together and flipped inside out.
The tulle overskirt wsa about 40 yards of tulle that I ordered on a roll off of Amazon, with a small channel sewn at the top of the fold. Then I sewed a bunch of satin strips together and pulled it through the top channel by taping the sating to a pencil and pushing the pencil through the opening to bunch it up.
The satin slip was sewn onto the front of the tulle skirt, and then then it could be tied around my body. I would tuck the rest of the waistband underneath the tulle skirt once it was tied to hide it.
My shoes were Silver Nina Flosie Stiletto's witha 4.5 inch heel, and they made me very tall (I'm 5'10 so I was about 6'2.5 with them on and felt like a giant next to my family so I had to take some photos next to my 6'4 Uncles to feel less like a giant.)
My two necklace's were both Elsa Peretti from Tiffany. A little diamond and a G. My earrings were given to me by a friend who got them in India but they are super sparkly and my favorite earrings to wear. The looked amazing with the rest of my silver accessories.
I'm still wearing my Apple Watch because I need to know what time it is at all times, and my purse was a black Michael Kors pebbled crossbody. My nails were painted in a holo silver, and I did my hair myself, using a rolled up sock to give me some more volume.
This was all for my cousins wedding at Architects Golf Club in Phillipsburg, NJ which is personally one of my favorite courses to play because the views are stunning.
I recieved a lot of compliments on my dress, and I got some great photos as well. This dress was drafted, cut, and sewn completely in my litlte 10x14 shared dorm room at Lehigh University because I wanted to have something to do while I was sick and stuck in my dorm. I also couldn't find anything I liked to wear for the wedding and decided to take a chance and make myself something special and unique!
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