Lusting after a dress, help me find a pattern that somewhat resembles it

[elephun]

That's going to be beautiful, Manuela!

[jen]

This is going to be so good Manuela.
 The 'trapeze' or tent like shape is not hard to draft from a basic block or shift dress shape. You can swivel all of the bust dart into the waist area and down to the hem which creates some flare, and slash the pattern from hem to shoulder, as well as adding flare on the CF/CB, until you get the hem fullness you want. The M&M dress doesn't have much, I think you'd need a bit more. These tend to hang best if the side seams are angled roughly the same on back and front. The curved hi-lo hem can be drawn in once the tent shape is drafted, and the section below that just has to match on the seam but can be angled in by the reverse process (slash and overlap instead of slash and spread. The scallops on at least one of the dresses appear to overlap the lower skirt.
I think the two dresses have similar, but not identical, construction.

[UttaRetch]

The shape I was thinking of is puffball, but it's not the same thing.  I am sure Vogue used to do a lot of this shape and even looked at Issey Miyake without finding anything. 

[CarolC]

Hi - what a glorious dress!!! I think I might have to try something similar.

Going back to the original pics, I think it's actually not very complicated. It looks to me a half handkerchief dress with an extra layer just tacked on underneath the hem of the main dress. I think you could adapt it quite simply from any sheath dress pattern or even just a sleeveless bodice pattern as has been suggested before. I tried to draw it (attached - sorry it's a rubbish drawing).

Basically I think they put massive godets at the sides of a normal sheath dress without reshaping the hem to compensate, like a half handkerchief shape. That makes the sides longer than the front. The back is the same, so you get just two points, not the four of a handkerchief. There's no front seam and no shaping of the hem line, it just makes that shape itself. Then you add another layer underneath cut as a straight piece from the same border fabric. This is longer than the upper layer and attached loosely like an informal curtain and ruched up at the side seams a bit more to give extra fullness. In her dress, you can see how it's attached quite clearly as there are little gaps (the peachy bit in the front view is thigh, and the gaps are obvious in the side view).

Railroad the fabric and cut the front on a crossways fold (or flip the pattern) and put a seam at the back. You need the selvage to be the hem on both parts.

For length, I think I'd start with the upper part ending about crotch level at centre front and just above the knee at the side, then an under layer of maybe 40cm. It really needs a border fabric to make it work and the depth of the border will be important in the final lengths. How much difference you give between front and sides will also make it wider or narrower. More difference will give more width as the sides drop more.

Looking at the pics, for the pinky/white version she wears, the scallops are part for the fabric, for the gold version I think they created that scalloped shape on the selvage edge, then proceeded as above.

No idea about a similar commercial pattern, but it would be very easy to make your own pattern.

Can't wait to see the results!

[Manuela]

Wow, wow, wow CarolC, you're definitely onto something there with your sketch. That way I can utilise the scallop edge of my fabric. Thank you for the fantabulous sketch 
Need to put my thinking cap on about the mullet effect.... I might put the horizontal back seam to good use for that.
I'm happy to forfeight the horizontal front seam, as it might affect the drape.
Current recap with all the input
- handkerchief hem at the front using my TNT pattern with darts pivoted to the hem to create a trapez shape
- ruching at the side seams done via channels with inserted self fabric ties
- and some more thinking about the back using the horizontal seam ( I think about two triangles joined at the center back, to have side seams and centre back at the same length, thus creating the mullet effect)

[Tamnymore]

Goodness you are all such inventive people. Can't wait to see how this turns out!