Queen of Paisley 1930s Tea Dress

Behold the new oldest dress in my wardrobe and the only dress I own from this era. I bought it at the same vintage fair as this jacket. It was and still is far from perfect but I love it anyway. Look at that print!

Dress - Bus Stop Vintage

Those are the photos taken after I finished repairing it. Sorry, I struggle to take "before" photos because taking them just makes me want to get on with it and and start fixing.

I usually walk around the entire vintage fair at least twice without parting with money. Firstly for the practical reason of not spending too much money and not spending it on impulse buys and secondly because sellers tend to only take cash and the nearest cashpoint is usually a long walk away. Normally I gravitate towards fitted and full skirted 1950s frocks but this time I surprised myself and chose this dress from a wonderful stall at the back of the fair. I did the usual measuring, holding it against myself to check the length and checking for damage.

 

Damage report: Small holes in the skirt, fraying at the hem, worn underarm fabric, belt holes fraying, twisted, fraying and lint covered belt, neckline stitching unravelling, raw seam edges fraying, random blue stains...It didn't look good but I just loved that print. Plus, the measuring tape said it would be a perfect fit and I knew it would be unlikely I found a pre-1960 novelty print dress or a 1930s dress for under £100 let alone under £50. As the price fairly reflected the amount of work I needed to do to it, I decided I'd buy it and fix it up. After all, what else are bank holidays for?!

It took twelve hours, not counting the stain removable.

The first thing I did was unpick the shoulder pads. These would have be removed for washing anyway and were secured with loose embroidery thread stitches. I washed the dress and tried to remove as many of the blue stains are possible. Most are now gone and the remaining two much faded and barely noticeable against the print.

 

Random blue marks - probably caused by magic...

As the shoulder pads were made of wool felt and smelled musty, I decided to sacrifice them and use their fabric to patch the rest of the dress. I could always make new washable shoulder pads later. I used pieces of satin I already had, a similar colour and weight to the rayon of the dress, to patch small holes. This left 1/4 of the recovered shoulder pad fabric spare for any future repairs I might need to make.

 

Leftover side of one shoulder pad plus satin squares

I hand darned all of the small holes, backing them with patches of the satin for strength and to reduce pulling the dress.

Back of the collar, inside the dress

Back of the collar, outside view

Darns on the skirt

The fabric from one of the shoulder pads - two triangles, one from front layer, one from the back - was cut to create four smaller triangles. I used these to strengthen the shattered underarm fabric. There wasn't enough to pattern match properly.

Sleeve repair

The other sleeve

Underneath of a sleeve

View from the top/side of the sleeve

The repairs under the arms are symmetrical and mostly hidden when worn so the lack of pattern matching isn't too jarring. I prioritised pattern matching over a dark grey stain at the front of the skirt. The repair is mostly hidden in the folds of the dress when worn.

Skirt patch

 I stitched down the velvet at collar.

 

I unpicked the velvet belt from one side of the dress to press it. I machined it onto black grosgrain ribbon to prevent it curling under and to prevent the edges fraying. I darned the fraying belt holes and stitched them up where they had become stretched. I zizgagged the inside waist seams, going over twice those visible through the belt holes. I threaded the belt back in and sewed up the side seam.

Darning all of these took many an episode...

I zigzagged all of the other inside seams.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

More zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm always impressed how sturdy those old zips are.

Lightening zip

 Finally, I sewed the label back in.

That's a lady's face in pink to the left. She has a nice hat.

While perfectly wearable now, I think the next step is to scatter some sequins in small clouds around the dress to cover the darned holes and on the sleeves. But it's a job for another day and I'm still thinking it over. What do you think?