The PatternVault blog turns nine today! It’s been a pleasure writing about vintage fashion for you, for almost a decade.
Speaking of the passage of time, this year’s major Costume Institute show, About Time: Fashion and Duration, also considers questions of style and temporality.
Planned to mark the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th anniversary, the spring-summer exhibit has been postponed to open on October 29, 2020 (closing February 7, 2021). Luckily, thanks to Yale University Press, the exhibition catalogue is available to purchase, or preview online.
Andrew Bolton, About Time: Fashion & Duration (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2020) Design: Joseph Logan and Anamaria Morris. Image: Yale / Google Books.
The preview — and exquisite black-and-white photography by Nicholas Alan Cope — gives a taste of the garments selected for the now-postponed exhibition. Curator Andrew Bolton pairs Drecoll with Rick Owens, and a WW1 Red Cross uniform with current-season Margiela by Galliano.
Georgie dress by Mary Quant (ca. 1962) Image: V&A.
As part of its recent Mary Quant exhibit, the V&A shared a pattern for an early Quant design. The Georgie dress dates to the Bazaar days, before Quant’s deal with Butterick.
The V&A’s Georgie dress— purchased new in Truro, Cornwall — is striped cotton lined with cotton batiste.
Georgie dress by Mary Quant, ca. 1962. Gift of Sarah E. Robinson. Image: V&A.
As Quant’s archive shows, the dress was also available in taffeta-lined chiffon as the Rosie, in black, pink, or jade.
Design for ‘Georgie’ and ‘Rosie’ dress by Mary Quant (ca. 1961-65) Image: V&A.
The Georgie pattern was developed from Quant’s original by London’s Alice & Co Patterns, a mother and daughter team with a connection to the museum: the younger generation, Lilia Prier Tisdall, works there as a costume display specialist.
The dress has a surplice bodice, three-quarter sleeves, pleated skirt, and sash belt. For the original’s lively, reverse stripe effect, cut the skirt on a different grain than the sleeves and bodice.
Technical drawing for Mary Quant’s Georgie dress. Image: V&A.
The pattern gives detailed instructions, including for the pleated trim.
Making the Georgie dress. Image: V&A.
Download the Georgie dress pattern. (Instructions here.) The pattern has 7 pieces, arranged in 3 formats: A0, A4, and US Letter. Test square included to check scale.
