Sunday 21 February 2016

The Jazz Diva Dress


It's not often that I get the chance to wear a long evening gown so when the opportunity arose, I simply had to take it. We were playing for the first time at the Ellington Jazz Club and it was our CD launch for the gypsy jazz band I sing with, Voudou Zazou. It was a pretty special event for us so I decided to go all jazz diva and sew up a long sparkly gown for the occasion


The fabric I used was a black sparkly velvet which looks particularly good under lights (I had some leftover from another stage outfit that I made some years ago). I wanted the dress to be fairly understated but let the fabric and the side split be the feature and Vogue 8357 seemed like the perfect pattern choice.

Silver Frog Bling
It was dead easy to lengthen the dress and insert a split at the front side panel seam. Overall it's a pretty straight forward pattern to sew but the shoulder straps are a bit fiddly and seemed to take longer than it should have. Also velvet is not really the most sensible fabric to be sewing with in the middle of summer.


I was a bit concerned that I'd be sweltering on stage in this dress, but figured I'd be in an air conditioned venue and it would be fine. Well, we just happened to have a heat wave that week-end, it was near 40 degrees and the venue's air con packed it in. It turned out to be one of the hottest gigs I've ever done, but the dress looked fabulous and the show sold out so it was all worth it in the end!


And here's the dress in action - not the best shot but you get the idea: