Atonement dress

As some of you may have noticed, Tuesday was my twenty-fifth birthday. I am officially on the wrong side of twenty-five. I really don't like celebrating birthdays, but to console myself I decided I could get myself a little present. So I wandered around on eBay, my retail poison of choice.

Though I haven't seen the movie, in my opinion probably the most gorgeous dress to come out of film in the last ten years is the one worn by Keira Knightley in Atonement. It is green, bias-cut silk charmeuse with gorgeous details like a hip swag in front, complicated braiding effect in the rear, with an unusual mostly-bare back but with slim straps.

I'm crazy about it. I would say this dress is the primary inspiration for the design of Bethany's gown in Tailor of Riddling Way. Though since I have moved its creation to 1917 or so, it's even less period-appropriate, but I don't care.

Surfing around, I came across a listing for a prom dress that someone had commissioned but didn't want to keep anymore that had been styled after the Atonement dress. It was not very expensive and it was in my size, so what the hell, I decided to go for it. Here is what it looked like on the listing.

As you can see, far from a perfect copy. The color's not quite that vivid poison green (though that could be the camera) and that awesome strange randomly intertwining fabric effect on the rear is simplified to what appears to be rouching. Still, it captures a lot of what I like about the dress and even fixes the one thing I don't-- the bodice is kind of whatever on the original. I don't know why they went with laser cutting instead of beading on it, and emphasizes the boniness of Keira Knightley's chest. I have more going on up top anyway, so the more structured bodice of the version I bought will look better on me.

Probably someday, once my sewing skills are adequate to the task, I will make my own version of the dress. Charmeuse is a difficult, slippery material to sew with. But I bought the pattern that Gertie recommended as a good base for emulating it, Vintage Vogue 2859, just to have it for when that time comes.

 

Though it occurs to me that when I get to that point, what I may really want to do would be to make the Bethany dress, something similar except in cornflower blue with a nicer bodice. ;-) That would be a lot of fun.

Anyway, the dress I bought is scheduled to be mailed on Friday, so I expect it will arrive in the middle of next week. If so, it might be an option for my costume for Jesriah at Festival. It's ostensibly from the period I was told to emulate with my look. :-)