Behind The Design: The Day Dress

Dresses have been off my radar for a while, but with the sport-luxe trend on the wane, now felt like the right time to add a new design to the pattern collection.

With The Day Dress I wanted to design a simple, wearable, all-occasion dress to suit a myriad of fabrics.

Recently I have been playing around with gathers and tucks to add shape and incorporate volume. I like the idea of a dress where these two elements could be interchangeable, offering two very different styles, from the same basic shape.

The front and back pieces of this style couldn’t be simpler with a grown-on sleeve and simple round neck; the perfect canvas for manipulating the fabric with gathers or tucks.

The choice of gather or tuck alters the feel of the dresses considerably. Tucks create a sculpted, polished look whereas the gathers are more relaxed. This is especially obvious with the sleeves.

The positioning of the tucks and gathers are slightly higher on the front than the back. The amount of gathering and the depth of the tucks is determined by the ease with which to get the dress off and on. If the shaping is increased, a zip would need to be inserted in the side seam, especially for the tucked style as this is more rigid.

The two examples shown here are both made in linen, ideal for summer months but these styles would also work in more fluid fabrics like Tencel, viscose or silk. In the cooler months the tucked version would look very stylish in a lightweight wool.

The tucked option.

The gathered option.