Recreating Dior's 1957 Palais de Glace Dress: Part I
Dior's Palais de Glace Dress, 1957, Paris
I have loved this dress ever since I found a copy of the full-color photograph in Life Magazine years ago. I am sure it has sat in the back of my head ever since, silently feeding my love for the 1950s silhouette and serving as part of the inspiration for my Girls' Classic 1950s Shirt Dress pattern and my Ladies' Classic 1950s Wardrobe pattern. I never attempted to reproduce it for myself, but, once I settled on Paris as one of the stops on my 2019 Historical Fashion tour, I knew it had to be: I simply had to make a recreation of Dior's Palais de Glace dress to wear while in Paris!
I'm going to share the steps to recreate this dress as a fairly close homage--not as a 100% faithful reproduction. To go whole hog would mean making the bust-flattening interior lining that was one of two hallmark Dior looks (the other one being the much more pointed bust that we usually associate with the 1950s). If you want the full lowdown, you can check out Cathy Hay's wonderful blog post about making her own Dior gown and all she learned about the underpinnings that create its unique silhouette.
Starting with the right pattern as a base, and going from there...
Thankfully, it is pretty darned easy to make a close enough copy of this dress by marrying my girls' and ladies' 1950s patterns. I'm using the bodice from my Girls' Classic Shirt Dress, which features a notched collar (rather than the rounded shawl collar of the ladies' pattern), but I'm taking the fitted sleeves from the ladies' pattern. Finally, I will create a very full skirt and cartridge pleat it to get the maximum swirl value for photos. I am making little videos of this process over on my Instagram account, which have been saved to my Highlights under ePatterns, 2019 Sewing, and Darts. If I can, I will also make a YouTube video and upload that to my channel...but don't hold your breath. 😂Here on my blog, I am going to walk you through the process step by step: tweaking the two patterns to get this look, sewing and fitting a muslin toile, then making the final dress. If all goes as planned, there will be a final post to show off this dress in its original Paris setting! Stay tuned for my next post this week, which will walk you through the steps to create a perfectly fitted bodice pattern.
