Happy New Year! (and New Dress Form!)

Happy New Year everyone!

This morning the Fedex truck rolled up to my house with a present from my husband: a new dress form! I had been telling him that I was looking for a proper dress form. What I’ve been using for a while, bought years ago when I didn’t know any better, was advertised as a “dress form,” but was really a plastic mannequin with a lightly padded cover. I had to slide pins in sideways, and it did not squish like a real body. The boobs were very hard, and in an odd place. The mannequin was useful for hemming, and as a starting point for mock-ups, but I had to do a lot of fitting on myself.

Since I’ve gotten more serious about historical costuming and having underpinnings, I wanted a dress form that I could pad up, then squish down with a corset, or even maybe put bean bag boobs on. To accomplish that I needed to find a very small mannequin – smaller than me. I had looked at child-sized ones because they were flat-chested, but they were too short. I told my husband that it can be hard to find a size 0 adult dress form, but I was considering one I found on Amazon. Isn’t it nice when husbands listen, even when they’re saying they don’t know what you’re talking about?

Here she is! She’s fully-pinnable, with magnetic removable shoulders and a very heavy wheeled base. My old one was on a wooden tripod and not too stable.

She’s got a butt, instead of a mysterious smooth cliff.

I like that there are visible seams in the linen cover, which will help me keep things straight.

She’s quite an improvement over what I had before and I’m glad I get to start the new year with a nice new dress form!