As you may or may not have notice, I love Titanic. And not just the movie. Or even the ship. I love the entire time period. Now, you know I love the costumes from Titanic. But I also love the costumes from Tuck Everlasting, Finding Neverland, Somewhere in Time, and pretty much any other period film you care to show me, as well as extant dresses from the time.

One of my favourite type of dresses from the era is the lingerie dress. White, frothy, and heavily adorned with lace, pin tucks, and eyelet trim. And oh, oh-so lovely. So lovely. So I elected to create myself an updated version of it so I could have a bit of Edwardian elegance on a day-to-day basis.

See? So lovely!

Step one, choose a cite, basic summer dress pattern. Something with a waistband, a bodice shaped with gathers and side seams, and a skirt. Something like Simplicity 2886 or McCalls 6322. Step two, get some white fabric. Now, the biggest issue with a lingerie dress are all of the pin tucks, lace insets, and other fussy things. You can make your life a lot easier by not only buying fabric in plain white, but also grabbing some white fabric that is already covered with pin tucks and ruffles, and some white eyelet trim. Step three, choose some sash fabric. I used taffeta. It’s pretty.

Make the bodice out of the pre pin-tucked fabric. Add another skirt, and make it about 5″ shorter. Pin tuck the hem of the top one. Line the hem of the bottom one with eyelet trim.

Lastly, you’ll need a sash. Figure out how wide you want the sash to be, double it, and add 2cm for seam allowance. That’s your width. Measure your under-bust line, add 2cm seam allowance, and that’s your length.

Finish the sash off with some hooks & eyes for closures, and now you have an adorable dress you can wear in the summer and feel all kinds of pretty!