totchipanda

I have been watching Haylee Marie Vintage on Youtube just for something to occupy my attention during these looong work days. I like that she breaks down her projects in terms of fabric and notions costs and then talks about the labour cost. She also has a very cute cat.

On one dress she made last year, she talked about being non-binary and how these hyper-feminine vintage dresses she makes play into how she feels about her gender, like putting on a costume or wearing drag. I wanted to scream across the distance and time bc that is exactly how I feel. I love wearing my historical pieces and how they make me feel, and my day to day wardrobe doesn't reflect that much (yet). I don't mind wearing the frou frou and all the bits that go with it, but modern RTW clothes just don't make me feel good. She also has a similarly proportioned body to mine and that is also good to see reflected back.

As I've been working my way through the backlog of videos, she had made some Gunne Sax-inspired dresses and in one of them had been working from a hand-traced repro of an original pattern. The listing on etsy no longer works, but I searched for other patterns just to see what was out there. Like I knew they were popular and the patterns are sought-after but I never really appreciated the aesthetic that much.

Y'all. I immediately found one that made my brain go !!!. That pale version in the top left, with the blouse tucked in? Can we say early 1900s I think we can! So I am currently obsessed with figuring out how this works without spending $75+ on a too-small pattern. I have the power and the skills, let's do this.