Inspired by TV: The Dollhouse Dress (Simplicity 8130)

Here today I have a dress from the vaults. I was inspired to make this dress following a rewatch of the TV show Dollhouse  It was cancelled too soon, in my opinion. The premise of the show was that there are "actives", people with their personalities wiped so they can be imprinted with other personas in order to be assigned engagements with the rich and powerful. A great show, would recommend if you haven't seen it!



Eliza Dushku played the lead, Echo, and she had a wide range of personalities and therefore costumes in the show. This costume was from one of the season 1 episodes (I can't remember which off the top of my head, unfortunately), and I was immediately caught by the horizontal centre darts and the flattering shape of the bodice. So I went looking for a pattern to be able to replicate it!



The pattern I found was a vintage Simplicity crop top pattern (8130), which features a vertical centre seam, as well as side panels, and four horizontal darts on the front. There are options for a regular length of a crop top. I made View B (the longer version without the fold over collar), but I left out the boning. I didn't feel that it was needed for the dress, and I also didn't own any or know how to use it! I really liked the fit and how easy it was to make small adjustments to the fit as you went, given it has so many seams. In order to turn this top into a dress, I also left off the original button closure as directed by the pattern and put in a zip instead. To this I added a gathered skirt (with pockets of course!), making it as gathered as I could with the amount of fabric I had remaining.



The fabric I used was this lovely light dotted cotton from Goldhawk Rd. It is actually a reversible fabric so I spent a little while working out which side I would use. The original dress from the show was yellow, but I don't own or wear any yellow so went with blue because it's a much more wearable colour for me. I also went down 2 sides from my actual measurements, as it's a close fitting pattern and the first version was swimming on me! The only other adjustment I made was post finishing, to see down the top curved edge. I felt like the curve was too exaggerated and looked silly, so I simply folded it down, pressed it and hand sewed the edges down against the bodice lining.



I wear this dress less than some others, purely because of how thin the straps are and it's not super wearable for a work situation. But wearing it again re gently for photos reminded me how much I like it and I definitely think I should make it again... Maybe in gingham like the pattern envelope? Or with a fuller circle skirt? So many options...

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