My friends 18th birthday party was historically themed and I decided to go as a greek, because greek clothes have a simple elegance to them that I love. Most of my research came from a very useful book entitled "Costume and Fashion, a Concise History" by James Laver. Greek men and women wore the chiton throughout the 7th to 1st century BC, which was a basically a rectangle of fabric, folded around the body. Pins and brooches held it up and it was usually belted around the waist. The upper classes wore colours like red, yellow and green and decorations such as the greek fret were at the border only.
From this information I drew up my design which is consists of 2 rectangles (one front and one back). The top edge of the rectangle was scalloped and buttons put at the point of each scallop. The rectangle was cinched around the waist with a belt. I was going to do some fabric printing of the greek fret around the hem with gold fabric paint but time was an issue so I decided it looked fine without.
It really needs a belt to give it some definition.
The side seams were french seams and the armholes were turned twice and hand stitched in place using a slip stitch. To get clean scallops I used a facing for the top part of the rectangle using leftover fabric.
The facing was all over the place so I stitched it down to make sure the scallops were the right shape. The buttons I found at my local market for I think 25p each?
The fabric is a rayon polyester blend that we found at a Textile Traders in Perth. I was originally going to go with chiffon for this dress because I wanted a really nice soft, flowy drape but this fabric jumped out at me so I decided to go with it instead. I bought 3 m which I basically cut into two 1.5m lengths for my rectangles. The fabric is really cool because the warp yarns are gold, giving it a really shimmery effect when it moves.
That's it for now, thanks for reading and to Mum for taking quick photos before we dashed off to the party!
Lauren xx
