Vintage Mashup Maternity Dress

This was such a fun project!! My friend Theresa (who I made the minty tulle bridesmaids dresses for!) is a fellow vintage enthusiast, and also happens to love classic movies. Every year she attends the TCM movie festival, and usually wears an amazing true vintage gown on the red carpet. This year, she is expecting (yay!) and since there aren't a lot of formal vintage maternity gowns around, she asked if I could help her keep the vintage theme going by making a maternity dress using vintage patterns.

 We started looking at patterns from the 60s mostly, going for that popular empire waist of the time. We settled on vintage Vogue 5942 for the top, an empire bodice with a lovely low back, and vintage Simplicity 8497 for the bottom, a gorgeous flowing floor length full skirt. Neither of these are maternity patterns, but the empire lines just lend themselves perfectly to it! Then we found the most amazing silk that was just screaming to be used for this dress, a radiant teal silk with metallic copper/gold giant polka dots. This stuff just shimmers like you wouldn't believe, I think it looks like coins falling from the sky, lol.

It was really pretty quick to put together, it fit her great right off the bat. I didn't even have to alter the skirt much at all, it was full enough to accommodate the baby bump! I just left some length in front so I had plenty to work with when hemming.

I added a ribbon around the empire waist to break up the print a bit (was just testing the color here, didn't plan to keep that bow!)

And bra loops to keep the bra straps hidden.

I also added a pocket, of course. ;-) Then, probably my favorite part, we snuck a sweet little bow on the back!

I was able to snap a few pics of the final dress on her when she picked it up. I think she looked just stunning, as always.

And here she is shimmering on the red carpet at the festival!