Downton Abbey Inspired: The Lady Grantham Dress

Lady Grantham has two dresses that I really like. The first one is a red dress that looks like it's been hand painted on the bodice. The other one is the cream and black one pictured below:

Here is another view of it. Notice the lacy detail. I just really like the contrast of the stark black against the soft cream:

So I decided to make my own version. Unlike my other dresses that usually take between 5-8 hours to do, this one took about 15 hours.

My challenge was to make something that hinted at the original dress, but didn't look "costume-y." I used the same basic pattern as the other two Lady Mary dresses. I got the idea after seeing Lady Grantham's dress and realizing that I had off-white material (remnants of an unused Ralph Lauren bed sheet) and about a yard and a half of black lace fabric. I actually cut out shapes in the lace that I felt looked like trim. I added patent leather trim to give the whole thing an edge.

I pouffed the sleeves again. If you look closely, the lace doesn't have a finished edge. I did that on purpose, because I just liked the look. I think it looks modern.

In the original, the lace at the bottom sort of creeps up the sides of Lady Grantham's coat, so I hinted at that same "creepidge." This little detail here took me about 2 hours alone and trying to keep it all straight took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

You can see the patent leather in this picture. I sewed the bodice to the skirt and sewed the leather over it. This method is unlike The Sound of Music Curtain Dress in which I had used the belt part to actually drop the waist. I figured that sewing the belt on top of this dress would help with durability as the cream material is rather thin (I actually double-layered the material everywhere but the sleeves) and the leather was very thick. 

I'm not super happy with this side zipper as the leather is kind of bulky, but oh well. I am happy with my Huskvarna Viking sewing machine because it was able to sew through all this thickness with no problems!

The original dress had some lacey details on the sleeves, but I didn't want to overpower the whole thing with lace, so I just added this little detail to the small of the back.

This little charmer took about an hour. This is the only one I did by hand.

A close-up of the back neckline.

Someone point me to the nearest garden party!

Downton Abbey Inspired: The Lady Mary Lace Cut Out Dress

Again, this dress, like the last, is inspired by Lady Mary's Dress in the picture below (middle one):

As you can see below, it is much the same pattern as The Lady Mary/Anna Dress with a few important changes. The buttons, metallic this time, are higher and closer up. The sleeves are not pouffed at the top, but I just did two simple pleats at the bottom of each sleeve. Also, the skirt is much fuller than the last one. The most significant difference is the black lace at the shoulders. This continues to the back and delivers sort of a more formal "cut-out" effect. It is reminiscent of the lace on Lady Mary's original striped dress, but more modern looking.

I almost feel like this dress is a blend of the three sisters. It is the basic style of Mary's dress, but more of a color Edith would wear (it is a bit more of a reddish tan than the picture shows), and the sleeves remind me of Sybil for some reason.

Here you can see a close up of the lace. I cut it with the diagonal line going up and out to the tips of the shoulders to widen the shoulders a bit optically, and also to appear reminiscent of a lace collar without the bulk of an actual collar.

These are three of a box of metallic antique buttons I was given.

Here you can see the two simple pleats in the sleeves that I mentioned. 

Notice the lace at the top of the back. (The picture makes it look crooked, but it's not.)

This dress has the same side zipper as before, but I added belt loops this time. I am thinking about adding them to the other dress as well, but I'm kinda lazy. 

Downton Abbey Inspired: The Lady Mary/Anna Dress

I love Downton Abbey...except for the third season's Christmas Special (no spoiler alerts from me!!!)... Anyways, I'm not here to discuss my frustrations with greedy actors (ahem...). I'm here to discuss how I love the clothes from that show, and to show my personal offerings of such.

Here is the first dress that inspired me (The one in the middle that Lady Mary is wearing). I really like how the costume designers dress her in Coco Chanel stripes. It really helps allude to the fact that young women in this era were spurning the over-blown Victorian gaudiness and confines of the corset and going for a simpler, classier look. The shocking rebellion started by Coco, of course...

I don't have quite that same striped pattern, but I have a couple others. The first one I used is this sort of grey and white:

That's why I called it the Lady Mary/Anna Dress, because it is Lady Mary's style, but the color and only three buttons seems a bit more Anna's fare. The collar is also higher and very conservative, which also seems a bit Anna than Mary. Obviously, it is must shorter than Mary's--just above the knee, compared with the Victorian ankle length--but I think it looks cuter, shorter. I also dropped the waistline a bit because my natural waist is high enough. Notice also the low hip profile.

I used the same basic pattern as for The Sound of Music Curtain Dress, which was just my modification of Burdastyle.com's Coffee Date Dress. I further modified it by squaring off the neckline and cutting the bodice into two panels so one could have stripes vertical, and one horizontal. Then, I elongated the pattern of sleeve that I'd been using from the "Chanel Inspired" dresses.

From the back.

I don't have the same lace in white that Mary's dress requires for the collar, so I just cut a doily in half.

Mary's sleeves aren't puffed, but I did it just for fun.

Again with the very short side zipper. (It bothers me that the bodice lines don't match up with the skirt, but...they couldn't once I put in darts on the bodice because darting automatically makes stripes a little diagonal.)

Escape hatch!

The other half of the doily, I finagled to piece in the front as a collar.

If you look closely, you can see that to keep the facing down, I sewed the top white stripe with white thread. You can't really see it, and that's the point.

These are the back skirt pleats. I didn't dart the skirt. Yes, it's lazy, but also with the side zipper being so short, I didn't want to develop claustrophobia getting into this dress, so I left them as pleats.

You can see the front pleats better from the side. It's kind of a weird profile having the pleats undarted, I know, but it looks better on a person. I just didn't have time to take a picture of me in it. 

Maybe one day.

I hemmed it by hand. Can you see my stitches? Nope. They are truly blind stitches, thanks to the white stripes!

The back side of the hem shows how I stitched it.

I debated over sewing a stripe of black onto the dress itself the way the original is, but then just opted for a patent leather belt. The silver buckle helps modernize the look.

The side.

The end!