Downton Abbey - Lady Mary's purple striped dress

In the first season of Downton Abbey, Lady Mary Crawley wears a simple purple striped dress in two episodes; first, during their annual flower show on episode 5 and then, during a garden party when they first get word that the UK is at war with Germany in episode 7.

When I first saw the dress, I thought to myself "Oh, how lovely and simple, yet intriguing due to the variation of the stripes throughout." Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a love/hate relationship towards working with striped fabric. They are a pain to work with, but the satisfaction of making a garment where they line up beautifully brings a sense of accomplishment.

I did not originally set out to make this dress, I sort of happened upon it. I was at our local fabric store, Mill End Fabrics in Carson City, when I saw the bolt of fabric and thought "Lady Mary's picnic dress!"

 Simple polished cotton purple and ivory striped fabric

 

 

Since I found the perfect fabric, I could hardly ignore the calling to make the dress. So, I set out to draw the design and search for patterns. I was unable to find anything remotely similar to the bodice, however, I found a few patterns that could work for the skirt of the dress. For years, I thought that I had to find the perfect pattern and stick to it. I have since learned that if the pattern has about the right shape, it can be manipulated to work. So, I didn't set out to look for a whole dress pattern. I looked for separates to sew together to make the dress.

 

 

 

Not having any formal dress making training, when I couldn't find a pattern to work for the bodice, I was nervous when I set out to draft one. I sketched an idea of what the pattern might look like and used my dress form for the measurements. I looked at many different angles of this dress to see all the different directions of the stripes and where the seams of the dress are. I determined that the only seams on the bodice were at the center back, side seams from waist to sleeve cuff, and the side front seams. I measured where I thought the neckline would be at the front and back to the waist, then across the waist at front and back, then from the shoulder down for the sleeve. The following is what I came up with on my first attempt.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, I was a bit off for the seam that connects the front to the back. No problem. Back to the drawing board.

 

 







 

 

I simply taped the first draft onto a new piece of paper and made my adjustments. Now that I had the shape of the pattern close enough, it was time to figure out how the dressmaker of the original got the stripes to go all those different directions on one pattern piece. First, I drew the stripes going the different directions seen on the original onto the pattern that I drafted.

 

 

 

Then, I cut the pattern at the shoulder to make the stripes of the fabric line up with the stripes on the pattern. I honestly do not have a clue what I was doing at this point. I was doing a lot of guessing and feeling a bit discouraged, but I kept trying.

 

 

 

 

After two or three tries, I got the bodice fairly close to the original.

 

 

Here you can see the stripes going in all the right directions

 

 

Next, to tackle the skirt. I chose to go with Wearing History's Cordelia Skirt pattern https://wearinghistory.clothing/product/e-pattern-cordelia-circa-1909-1914-skirt-pattern/

 

Since it is a single seam skirt, I had to make adjustments for it to work with this project. From what I could see in the images, Lady Mary's dress has a center back seam and two side front seams. I should have done some measurements before cutting out the skirt, but I easily fixed where I went wrong. Knowing that I would be adding seams, I cut the skirt one size larger that I would have if I were not adding seams. I guessed that the center front seams would rest where the patterns darts were, so that is where I cut. I ended up needing to cut a new center panel to match the original, so my dress actually has a total of five seams, instead of three.

 

 

Here, I am drawing the side front seam from the dart

 

The dress nearly finished

 

 To put the dress together, I used a strip of complimenting plumb purple fabric and stitched the bodice along one edge and the skirt along the other. The opening should have been at the front side seam. However, I had already finished the opening before I realized that I needed to cut a new panel in the skirt. So, the opening is at the side back seam. I simply used the extra fabric along the lower edge of the bodice to fold under and tack in place to finish the inside waist.

 

At this point, all that was left was some minor adjustments and to add the lace. Sadly, when the lace collar and trim arrived, it was much too small.

 

 

It appears to have been made for a child's dress

 

 

So, I decided to cut it at the shoulder to make it fit, planning to fill in the gap

 

I needed to double the trim to make it wide enough and it

 happened to be the same as what the collar was made from

 

 

Again, having no clue what I was doing, I set out to fix the collar to make it fit.

 

 

Pinned in place so I could work off of the existing pieces

 

I followed the flow of the original;

 took me about 3 hours to fill in both sides

 

Overall, I am very please how it turned out. I found a straw hat at the thrift store for $1 that was just about the correct shape and bought some nice hat netting at Mill End and silk flowers at Michael's craft store to decorate it with, using Lady Mary's hat as inspiration. I spent the afternoon with my daughter and friends from the Great Basin Costume Society at our Annual Titanic Tea, which happened to fall on my birthday.

 

My daughter and I