My Twiggy Dress

This McCalls pattern always brings to mind that famous photo of Jean Shrimpton in Melbourne for Derby Day, 1965.
The mini had arrived in Australia!
















The McCalls pattern was published in 1966. I love the claim on the front "Dressmaker Tested". Do you think that patterns today are dressmaker tested?

Here is my interpretation;



I made this dress a while ago, and clearly before I started worrying about such things as allowing extra fabric to match patterns... from memory, I did not actually have enough material, which is why the back doesn't match and the facings are a little dodgy. Perhaps I should have followed The Shrimp's lead, and just made the dress a little shorter (her solution to insufficient fabric).

I bought the fabric on my holiday to Paris, which was my last hoorah before having children. I was a little disappointed that I was in the capital of fashion and had not managed to buy any clothes. I tried to ask the hotel manager for directions to a fabric shop, but did not know the French for "fabric". Then on our second last day, we headed out to the 18th quartier to see Le Sacre-Coeur. That's where we stumbled into Dreyfus, a huge fabric store several stories high. I would go back to Paris just to return to this store (well, a few chocolate eclairs wouldn't go astray either). The fabric was a Thai silk (so perhaps I should just go to Thailand?) for AUD7/m. I loved it so much, I pieced together all the scraps and used them to make this bag.