I've finally done it! After weeks of delaying because I felt intimidated I've tackled and completed the Joanie dress (New Look 6000). I was so sure it'd be difficult, and I was really unsure about what fabric to chose, due to the fitted and curvy style, very different to my other dresses so far.
There's lots of inspiration out there, it's a really popular dress to make up, as you can see over on
Burda Style. People tend to call it the 'Joanie' dress thanks to the 1950/60s Mad Men style worked by the beautiful Christina Hendricks.
Once I'd got round to building up the courage and bought my fabric (a navy jersey knit from Fabrics Galore) making the dress was remarkably simple!
It's pretty fitted, and I'm delighted with the lined sleeves - never thought it could be so easy! I started just a few weeks ago and since then the fabric choice has become obviously wrong one. Taking these photos at 9am I was already pretty warm!
The pleat details worked out mostly ok, though they're not perfect...
And the button was a hard choice but was eventually picked up at Liberty's - their very last one in this size.
It was a cool day up in Liverpool so I decided to wear it for a good friend's wedding, what do you think? It's with nude shoes, a cream knit jacket from Zara and lots of red lipstick...
I have absolutely no idea where to wear it more normally - it's not really my normal style for work. How would you wear it, and what do you think of the finished version?
