Remember that Prom Dress Project I was working on a while ago? Well, it’s finished. I actually finished around the end of April, and Megan twirled all night at Senior Prom the first week of May. Over the weekend we got together to do some portraits of the graduate, and her custom dress. The two fit each other perfectly, not only because I designed the pattern to her measurements, but because they are both unique, subdued, elegant, sophisticated yet fun and beautiful.

The coral material is pure silk taffeta and the overlay a French alencon lace. We started with an idea of a vintage silhouette, and the beautiful fabrics brought it to life. I loved the scalloped edge of the lace, so chose to use it along the hemline of both skirt and sleeve, which adds so much charm, don’t you think?  I used McCall’s M5850  as a rough starting point blueprint to create the unique pattern of the finished dress. The changes included eliminating the princess neckline, moving the zipper to the side, adding length on the top and bottom of the bodice…oh, and building a similarly fitting sleeved overlay sans darts and seams! It was a lot of fun, and a great opportunity to stretch my seamstress muscles. 

At the last minute, I threw together the hairpiece of the dress fabric scraps. I added a pearl to each of the three rosette centers, and the effect was perfect.