Tag Archives: Egyptian Revival

1920s Egyptian Revival and Poiret Cocoon Coat (Part 3) at the Rosicrucian Museum

Posted on February 21, 2016 by freshfrippery

Yesterday I wore my 1920s Egyptian Revival dress and my Poiret cocoon coat at the GBACG Egyptian Expedition at the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, CA.

You can read about the finished dress in my previous posts, but to summarize, both the dress and coat are made of silk velvet. I used the Decades of Style Zig-Zag dress pattern and the Folkwear Poiret coat pattern.

I am wearing a vintage fox fur collar and footwear from Royal Vintage Shoes. I felt so glamorous in this coat!

I found a place in the museum that had interesting lighting and gave things a slightly eerie glow.

You can see the double-layered silk chiffon sleeves in this photo.

I am wearing golden bee pins in my hair.

Outdoors in the sun the colors of the coat are more obvious.

Here’s a shot of those gorgeous shoes (I got so many people asking where I got them!) with my matching purse. My vintage-style stockings started to pool and slip just like the real ones.

I came in under budget for the dress, so I splurged a little on the coat materials.

5 yards of silk velvet burnout: $82.50 plus tax (from Fabric Depot in El Sobrante; I still have leftovers)
4 yards heavy blue satin: $12.77 plus tax (from Joann’s at 50% off, with an additional coupon!)
Folkwear pattern: $19.95 plus $2.75 shipping (from eBay)
Tassle: free! (The place where I bought the velvet threw that in for free)
Button, thread: from the stash

Total: $119.12

You can see more photos of our museum adventures on Flickr. My friend Kim also has a very nice photo album here.

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Posted in 1920s and tagged 1920s, cocoon coat, Egyptian Revival, Paul Poiret, silk, velvet. Bookmark the permalink.

1920s Egyptian Revival (Part 2)

Posted on February 15, 2016 by freshfrippery

My 1920s Egyptian Revival dress is finished, in time for the event at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum!

I used Decades of Style’s zig zag dress pattern. It’s a great pattern that I’ve used before, although in retrospect silk velvet is not the best fabric for it. Velvet slips and stretches so much during cutting and sewing that needing lots of triangles to match up perfectly can be difficult. (After cutting, I had to fuss around with mine a lot to make everything fit, so it doesn’t line up as well as I wanted). I also used very sheer silk chiffon for the sleeves and collar binding. It was so sheer that I had to double up on layers. I originally ordered 1 meter of the navy blue silk, but the shop sent me 4 meters by accident (and told me to keep the rest!) so I’m glad I had the extra since I had to use twice as much as I was planning to.

Here is the dress with an Egyptian collar I purchased on eBay.

I found these really neat appliques on eBay as well! The seller didn’t have any information about them other than they are “vintage,” so I don’t know where they are from. They are a rather stiff, so the folds of the skirt drape a little funny, but I still find them an interesting touch to the project.

The neckline is bound with 2 layers of silk chiffon, and the shoulders are gathered.

The chiffon didn’t work out for binding the zigzags, so I found some fine rayon twill tape to do the job.

I need to iron flat some small details but it’s finished!

Stay tuned for next week, when I will take pictures of myself wearing it at the Egyptian museum, along with some accessories I am excited about (like new shoes from Royal Vintage Shoes!)

Final costs (lots of lucky bargains!):

3 meters white silk velvet and 4 meters navy silk chiffon : $58 including shipping from Halo Silk Shop
Appliques: $6 including shipping from eBay
10 yards twill tape: $4.50 plus tax (with extras left over)
Pattern: $0 (I already own it and used it before)
Collar: $10.80 including tax and shipping from eBay

Total: ~$79.30 (for a silk dress!)

Read Part 1 here.

Poiret Cocoon Coat (Part 2)

Posted on February 4, 2016 by freshfrippery

I’m currently hemming my 1920s Egyptian Revival dress, but have been working a little on the Poiret cocoon coat in between.

The Folkwear 503 is a very simple pattern, but the assembly is different than what I was expecting. I’m used to coats and most garments having seams in the shoulders and sides, but this pattern has a long seam down the center back, and then a horizontal seam across the front of the chest, with darts in the shoulder/neck region. It works, but took a little staring to get over the “you want me to do what?” feeling.

Here is a diagram from the inside of the pattern instructions:

The sleeves and coat body are cut as one huge piece for each side of the body. The top is folded down to make the sleeve (hence the horizontal seam). The pattern piece is very wide, and takes up most of the width of your fabric.

I’ve cut out the pieces and sewn them together, but I need to press the seams and attach the lining to the outer fabric, and add a closure. The width of the pattern piece makes pattern-matching on the fabric difficult. To match I would have had to line up my pattern piece about a foot in from the edge, and that wouldn’t have been wide enough. However, the busy pattern helps hide this a bit, and using a solid fabric would make the back and front seams very obvious.

At the moment I’m considering not using the collar pattern piece included with the pattern, and putting a fur collar on instead. I tucked this fur scarf I have into the coat to get a general idea of what it would look like, but I think I would rather have a chocolate brown fur that matches the fabric, or go for a fluffy cream collar for more contrast.

So far I would have to say that this pattern is very easy to use – there are definitely not a lot of pieces at least!

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Posted in 1920s, Uncategorized and tagged 1920s, cocoon coat, Egyptian Revival, Paul Poiret, sewing, silk. Bookmark the permalink.

Poiret Cocoon Coat (Part 1)

Posted on January 22, 2016 by freshfrippery

I am still working on my 1920s Egyptian Revival dress, but I am in the middle of tediously hand-stitching the trim, so there isn’t a lot for me to discuss about the progress of the dress. Meanwhile, let’s talk about cocoon coats! I have been wanting one of Paul Poiret’s luxuriously draped coats, and since the Egyptian event I am attending is during the winter, this is the perfect time to make one.

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Illustration by Paul Barbier. Check out that Egyptian print on the dress on the left!

I am using the Folkwear Poiret Cocoon Coat pattern, which seems quite easy and straightforward. Originally I planned to make one out of solid red velvet to highlight the red accents in my 1920s dress, but . . .

. . . a few weeks ago I was shopping for ribbon when I came across this incredibly beautiful silk velvet burnout fabric!

It has a beautiful blue, purple, and chocolate brown paisley pattern.

I later bought coordinating lining fabric to highlight the blue in the silk.

I’m looking forward to starting this project!

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Posted in 1920s and tagged 1920s, coat, costume, Egyptian Revival, Paul Poiret, sewing, silk. Bookmark the permalink.

1920s Egyptian Revival (Part 1): Silk! Embroidery! Flapper Shoes!

Posted on January 17, 2016 by freshfrippery

Next month the GBACG is hosting an event at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. To celebrate the Egyptomania surrounding Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, I will be making a 20s dress with an Egyptian Revival theme.

I am using white silk velvet and navy blue silk chiffon. Here it is pinned together but still looking rather plain before its embellishments.

I am using Decades of Style’s zig zag dress pattern, which I used before to make my Daisy dress for the Gatsby Picnic.

I made a bunch of silk chiffon bias tape to trim the zig zags, but sadly they are really too sheer and delicate and the seams show through, so I will have to come up with another plan. (The fabric is so sheer the sleeves are 2 layers of chiffon).

I have 8 of these vintage appliques, one for each panel of the skirt. They might be a little weird, but I am hoping they are just weird enough.

I am excited to wear the dress with these shoes I got from Royal Vintage Shoes. They come in black/gold and navy/silver, but not navy/gold, so I went with the black/gold combination. They are really lovely and I’m glad I’ll have an excuse to wear them!