Eschewing fast fashion allows slow fashion and old fabric to make its way into my closet.
Hawaiian Tropic Swing Dress, designed, draped, patterned & stitched by Kylee Alexander
As a true lover of fashion, fabric, textiles and gewgaws, I love to collect things to adorn myself with in the future, and this amazing printed cotton from Joann Fabrics was no exception. I bought this on a trip to the store with my grandma two summers ago, and promptly stashed it away, waiting for the perfect garment idea to take shape so I could begin cutting. This fabric felt truly vintage to me, and in my recent rejection of mass consumption and consequent embrace of vintage and handmade clothing, I’ve been looking and studying historical garments a lot lately. Butchwax Vintage happens to be one of my favorite fashion historians, and in scrolling through her Instagram feed I was instantly drawn to the perfectly fitted balconette dresses of the 1950’s.
It’s been years since I draped a corset, so I relied on 1/8” black graphic tape to outline the exact silhouette I wanted on my vintage Wolf dress form. My bust is considerably larger than my dress form, and after trying the first toile, I added padded cups to the form and draped the cups of the corset again. Full disclosure: very few things work out perfectly the first time around, especially in pattern making. After the first draft of my pattern, I continued to make three more samples of the corset to fit on my body, adjusting the paper pattern each time. As you can see, I drape with a lot of notches, each one meticulously placed. These help me navigate exactly where certain fit issues occur, and help immensely in sewing the garment together.
One thing I have to be conscious of as a designer is the fact that I do not have a serger or overlock machine - nor do I want one. I’ve been doing a lot of research on vintage clothing, including visiting the Fashion Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and investigating how early clothes were produced, and what kind of traditional, proper seam finishes were initially used before mass manufacturing introduced overlocked seams. Every seam in this garment is completely finished, either by use of a cotton lining (purchased from Fishman’s Fabrics) or french seamed.
In designing the skirt and again looking to vintage clothing for inspiration, I decided on something full to maximize the silhouette and the use of this incredible fabric. It had been some time since I had drafted a circle skirt, but I figured that the drape of a circle skirt with a ruffled hem would create an excellent swing-style with massive volume. As soon as I had finished the initial ruffle I knew it wasn’t quite right - it was too long in length, and simply wasn’t full enough. I added an additional three panels of ruffled hem to get the exact pop I wanted out of the skirt.
The ruffled hem was finished using my baby hem foot, on my Juki 5550N. Creating this garment was truly slow fashion - but sometimes thats what it takes to create something fitted perfectly to you, using no shortcuts, finished to perfection. A garment that will truly stand the test of time, is wash and wearable, and timeless in it’s design.
