In the Spring and early summer of 2023, I had lost a little bit of weight (about 10ish pounds). Over the rest of the summer and fall, I would lose about 35-40 more pounds, which I would keep most of off until present times. My OG bodice pattern wasn’t fitting anymore, and I knew I needed to adjust the fit to make the silhouette more period correct. I needed to widen the neckline’s wide oval shape and carve out the straps to significantly narrower versions as far off the shoulder as I could allow and still be highly functional at events. Especially as this dress was going to be aimed for camping and other outdoor events.
I worked on my pattern and made adjustments as I saw fit. I constructed the bodice using the skinned-guts method as previously used and discussed in this blog. The bodice was skinned with Wild Cherry linen in the 5.3 oz weight from Fabric-Store.com. The neckline trim was a narrow pleated satin ribbon from the stash. I used a lovely embroidered sari trim from Etsy and 2 layers of 1-inch synthetic horse hair braid for the hem stiffening.
I finished the dress but not the sleeves. Below is the original look at roughly the weight it was patterned at. It already had issues from the first wear. There was gaping at my ‘dowage hump’. The front did not properly hold ‘the girls’ above the waistband, and they kept sliding down below the empire waist with extended wear.
I attended an event with my now Laurel– Magistra Vittoria di Carduci– in New Orleans, and I was able to get a lovely photograph of this outfit in its original configuration there.
Fast forward to 2025, this dress sat languishing in my closet because I had lost the rest of the weight, and the fit had gone from poor in the first place to downright unwearable. I decided to Glow Up this dress. I would remove and remake the bodice–with a better neckline trim. I would add slits on the side of the skirt to allow for easier lacing on and off. As can be seen with the photos below of the bodice sans skirt, the fit was poor. Even laced closed, it was too big to hold my bosom above the waistline, and the girls slid down below the waist rather quickly. In addition, the trim line wiggled a lot, and there was a large wrinkle on the front of the bodice.
I had a mostly workable pattern from the Revised 1490’s pattern from 2024 that I made my Framboise silk dress from. That pattern had dealt with my weight loss and was a significantly better fit– though it still gaped a bit at my ‘dowager hump’. I would adjust the angle of the strap on the back to help alleviate this.
Here is that adjusted pattern on brown paper thrown over the original bodice that had already come off the dress. The difference in fit is significant. The tweak between this pattern and the Framboise silk dress was to dip the back neckline curve down another ¼ inch at the center back and to change the angle of strap attachment on the bodice back by taking ⅛ inch off of both the bodice back and the strap on the inner edge and angling it to NOTHING on the outer edge. This adjustment changes the tension on the bodice back and helps correct the gaping at my ‘dowager hump’.
For the updated neckline trim, I whip-stitched down 2 rows of caramel-colored soutache. The inspiration for the soutache neckline is taken from Sacred and Profane Love by Titian (1514). The clothed figure in this painting has a double row of thin gold trim on her blue outer gown.
As mentioned, the skirt for this dress did not have slits at the sides in the walking gores. This made it incredibly difficult to get into by squishing my bosom through that choke point on the dress. I attempted to add slits to the skirt at the center of each walking gore. The addition is rougher than I would prefer, but I learned a lot about how to make this modification for my future Glow-Up of the Intergalactic silk underdress I still plan to do. And as always, this is a camping event dress that will eventually have an overdress over it, so the sides should not be seen. In addition, to help keep the curves crisp, I whip-stitched around the armscyes in a matching thread.
Below is the final fit of this Glow Up. The modifications I made over the frambroise silk dress I had made before this really sucked in the back at my dowager hump. The back lays very flat across the whole of my back. In addition, the trim is even and does not wiggle as much as the previous version of this bodice did.
