I made this dress to wear one New Year’s Eve, but I have enjoyed wearing it several times since–most notably, on my first date with my boyfriend. We met right after work (5:30) at a high-end restaurant in the San Francisco financial district–totally over the top for the time of day and place. I think he was a little shocked, actually, but he’s still around, so I guess it went okay!

The dress is made of silk brocade and lined with silk charmeuse. The skirt is the bottom part of a Vera Wang bridal dress, Vogue Pattern 1756. The inspiration for the jacket is a thrift store jacket I bought for $1. The pattern for the corset is from the then-head corsetier at Western Costume Co. from whom I took a corsetry class many years ago. I don’t know if you can tell or not, but the pattern is matched across the center front in the middle.

The hat is my own creation. I made the flowers and added the little orange bird as a nod to the elaborate feathered hats of the past.

I have several favorite details I could not show you for lack of space. Under the hat, where the lining is darted, is a sweet little flower at the dart apex. The Vera Wang skirt has a fishtail hem with a bow at the top; I added two bows at the bottom of the corset and one tiny one at the back neck of the jacket to coordinate. My favorite design feature of all, though, is due to a mistake I made when trimming the underarm seam allowances on the jacket. I accidentally snipped into the lining fabric, creating a hole, and used a 1″-wide strip of the outer fabric, placed on the underarm side seam to cover it up.

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