The Sewing Place

Tools of the Trade => Dress Forms => Topic started by: Manuela on June 08, 2017, 14:00:33 PM

Title: Vintage dress form
Post by: Manuela on June 08, 2017, 14:00:33 PM
I seems that I found a new indulgence.  :devil:
Accompanying my vintage machines will soon be a vintage dress from. I found a wire Dritz My Body Double adjustable dressform from the 50-60s.
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Vegegrow on June 08, 2017, 14:04:16 PM
That's fab... wonder why they didn't carry on making them?  or do they?
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Manuela on June 08, 2017, 14:17:27 PM
Their new dressforms still have the same name, but are your run-of-the-mill adjustable ones. I have a Singer one quite like the new Dritz ones, only because it is as short waisted as I am, so ideal for adjusting and padding up with bra and shoulderpads.
I can imagine that it became too expensive to make those wire forms, they are incredibly well made, no sharp edges, little marvels of mechanical engineering - same faith the Featherweights suffered...
i got this one for our place in Thailand. Bella, my little pink Featherweight is residing there, I needed a dressform as well for my new sewing area there...
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: b15erk on June 08, 2017, 16:06:07 PM
What a lovely dressform!  I wish the modern ones weren't quite so 'functional' looking.  I'm afraid mine is a glorified coat hanger... :|

Jessie
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Surest1tch on June 08, 2017, 22:48:08 PM
I used to have one like that many years ago, I lent it to a "friend" for a costume display they were having to raise funds for her church and never got it back  :'(. It seems it disappeared!  I got profuse appologies but no offer of replacing it
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Marniesews on June 09, 2017, 02:43:13 AM
My mum had one like this, it seemed a great idea but didn't live up to its promise, as I recalled. You had to push the wires into the shape of your body which wasn't easy to get anything like a smooth outline when you put the dress onto it, the fabric often dimpled across the surface which, after all, was just a series of holes. I wasn't impressed and she went out long ago with no second thoughts I'm afraid.  :S
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Iminei on June 09, 2017, 06:36:14 AM
Looks like some instrument of torture !!! and I would worry about the wires ripping, catching the fabric ...Do you cover it with a 'skin' or use as is ?

Also in the wonderous advert (25.98 !! what a lot of money in those days ...'50's?) there seems to be a head on the form or is that the woman being measured up ??

If the second, will you be entering the 'Cage of Doom' too ???
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Manuela on June 09, 2017, 10:38:32 AM
Lol Imenei, that's definitely a women getting her friens to make the form fit  :D
It should arrive next week, then I'll see how exactly I'll use it. I rather like the industrial look of the wires, and hope I can use it without a cover.
Title: Re: Vintage dress form
Post by: Marniesews on June 09, 2017, 12:26:12 PM
Sorry to be so negative about it, Manuela, you may well do a better job with it than we did.

It did some with a stockinette cover which tended to shift across the wire form but, now I think about it, if you make a tighter one out of something with more substance like scuba, that might make a difference.