23 Pages of Dresses

I started at the Hot Topic website. Then I moved on to Google.

[Victorian Dress_______] [Search] ...*click*
[Baroque Dress_______]  [Search] ...*click*
[Rococo Dress________] [Search] ...*click*
[Neo Victorian Dress___] [Search] ...*click*
[Neo Baroque Dress?__]  [Search] ...*click*

And so it continued... Until I finally typed in "Lolita". And it was all over.

The backstory: I'm in a costume construction class and have to pick a design for my midterm project. Basically it has to be either a dress or skirt/shirt combo. My original plan was to base my design off a cool outfit I found on ebay. But then the seller made me angry (stupid.wrong.sweater.nerrrr.) causing me to lose interest in their designs. So I'm making a dress, which is what everyone else in the class is doing. But, since I'm me, it can't be a basic sundress or party dress like most of the others'. So of course I started scouring the internet for my dream dress. I did not find my dream dress, because it soon became clear that nothing close to my dream dress is in my range of sewing talent. However I did find some pretty dang cute options. In fact, I found 23 pages worth.

Now, I obviously can't post all 23 pages of dresses, just like I had to narrow down the options I'm actually bringing to class, but I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

 This is one of the Hot Topic dresses I liked. (If you like it, check out their website!) The design doesn't look overly complex and I love the lace, though I feel like I won't like the design as much with different fabric, which obviously I'd have to get. Also if I decided to go with satin, which is one of my favorite parts of this dress, that may get a little pricey. But it's still an option. Another option is to put this specific dress on my Christmas list!

This is really pretty and I'd love to someday be in a play that used this for a costume (Shakespeare next year, maybe?). I love the design on the top, though I have a feeling my professor will rule out the corset style as being too complex for us (It's a beginners' course). Also the large amount of fabric this requires would be expensive and difficult to work with. Not to mention I have no idea what I'd do with this dress once I have it. I don't regularly attend anything that would make use of a floor length dress. Scratch that: beyond floor length - dress with train!

 This was the first Lolita dress I found during my quest. It reminds me of Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-Era fashion. Well, modernized obviously. If I did this design I would use a diffent color and probably would either ditch or simplify the sleeves. And I would make the neckline the square and cut out the high collar because we haven't learned collars yet. I have a feeling the skirt would still cause the design to be deemed too complex, but I'm keeping it as an option.

 This dress is adorable. It doesn't look too difficult (but what do I know?) and I could find a nifty patterned fabric to use rather than their detail. I like some of the others better though and I'm afraid the professor will veto the little corset detail.

 I LOVE this dress. It's by far my favorite of all the ones I found. I even would probably use a similar color, minus the detail on the skirt portion. I highly doubt it will be approved because the bodice and collar look nothing like the patterns we're carving our design out of in class. Plus the amount of detail on this would have me living in the costume shop for the next month to finish it. But I'm bringing it to class as an option because, hey, I can dream, can't I?

 This dress is quite pretty and looks fairly simple in design. I could pick a really funky pattern and make a cute little party dress. I'm worried the design may actually be a little too simple though (The professor couldn't just give us the handout with the requirements last week, could she?). We learned sleeves and darts and gathering and pleating in class and this doesn't really utilize those. It would also be very form fitting and I'd be afraid I screwed up my measurements.

 I want this dress as is, right now. Sadly it was from some British website and I am not British. And I'm a poor college student who would be lucky to be able to afford the materials to make this. But the same can be said for all of these dresses, and this one looks pretty simple and cute. It uses darts and buttons a little more than the last one so it may better meet the requirements. In any case, some funky fabric (and not that much of it) would be all I need to make a really cute dress, that I could probably wear pretty much anywhere.

 This one's also cute and looks like it would be the simplest to make, other than the straps. I feel like she may have said something in class about no halters. If nothing else I might steal the bow idea from this dress and put it on the previous one.

 This ensemble altogether is cute, and if I do make this dress I'd probably wear it in a similar way. I do like that this is a casual dress so I'd probably get more use out of it. Also the design lends itself well to lightweight cotton which would be much cheaper, albeit more easily damaged during construction. I'm not sure about the difficulty of the design, but if it's the winner I will probably use a similar color fabric.

This design is also a cute, fairly simple looking one. I love all of the details and the fabric, so I'd probably use something similar. Again this one may be too simple though and not meet the requirements. Maybe this one can be how I entertain myself over Christmas break.







So hopefully one of these designs will fit my professor's requirements and will soon become an addition to my wardrobe! (Disclaimer: I'm not actually copying these dresses, I'm basing my patterns off of theirs and using all fabric of my own choosing. Also the dress is just for me, I'd never replicate one of these to sell or give away, not that I'm anywhere near good enough to do that.) I'll update on which one my professor chooses. And let me know which one you think I should have done. If it isn't the class winner, maybe it can be my next little project I do on my own!

-Krys-
--Oh baby, you're a classic, like a little black dress--

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Update: Amazingly my professor actually said that my favorite one (number 5- the pink one) wouldn't be too difficult for me to make. She did however say it would be extremely time consuming and I would be living in the costume shop for the next month to make it. Since I have at least one project and one major paper, along with the murder mystery party I'm planning/writing for Halloween Weekend and the floor I'm in charge of planning for the Haunted House here at school, I decided making that overwhelming of a dress would probably not be a good idea. So the professor is having me do number 7 instead, since it's simpler. It's cool though, I'll have fun picking out funky fabric. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!