I made this outfit back in 1996 and didn't put a whole lot of thought into the construction. Even though I recieved a lot of compliments on the outfit, I wasn't at all happy with it and ultimately wound up retiring the gown pretty quickly. However, the wool was just too precious to let sit in the closet and get eaten by moths, so several months ago I began tearing the entire outfit apart. Currently, the dress is in the process of being completely revamped and resembles this picture only in color scheme. I will have pictures of the new version of this dress up very shortly.

In these pictures you see the dress as it was originally. It is made from 5 yards of gray wool and trimmed with black gimp. The forepart is plain black corduroy. The bodice laced up the front and was originally designed to be worn without a corset, so it was boned intermittently with metal boning. The neckline of the bodice was simply squared. The bodice was completely redesigned and now has a hook and eye closure, an arched neckline, comes to a longer point and has black corduroy guarding across the front and down the center.

The only distinguishable feature of this outfit that has made it through the redesign are the sleeves. The cheverons and border are in black corduroy which prevented me from using the black cotton velvet I had wanted to redo the bodice and skirt with. So black corduroy is was...

Although it is not shown here, I originally made a set of buttons for this outfit, using lost wax casting. They were nickle sized, made of pure silver and had a Celtic knot in the center of each one. I was really proud of those buttons and they earned me an A in my jewelry class at the time. It's doubtfull if they'll show up on the new dress, however. I wasn't very good at lost wax and ultimately the buttons were pretty crude. But still... I made them. ;)