What a Waste of a Lovely Night: The Yellow La La Land Dress

(For those of you who read The Monthly Stitch: feel free to skip, because this is almost exactly the same post I put up there.  There are two small exceptions:

Look! A picture of me dancing in my La La Land dancing dress was put on a poster for a dancing event! And then my Monthly Stitch post on this dress won a small prize, so yay!)

The Monthly Stitch’s July hacking** challenge came along just at the right time to kick my butt in gear and get me making this dress I’ve been thinking about all year: a hack of the yellow La La Land dress Emma wore during the What a Waste of a Lovely Night scene, based on the Sewaholic Cambie.***

(You can read the post about the Cambie experiment to use as a hack** for La La Land here. I’ll try not to revisit my obsessive fangirling too too much in this one. Quick summary: I knew I wanted to hack this dress as soon as I saw the movie last year; the Cambie was the closest I could find to it, with the separate waistband, sleeves joining along the top of the bodice, and a full skirt; and I made up a straight Cambie a month or two ago to work out the kinks and figure out what I’d need to change and how.)

Possibly the best part of making this dress was the built-in excuse to watch the movie a bunch of times so I could be sure to get the details just right. Research, right?

The second-best part is the dress itself. I love it, but it was a big undertaking and I’m glad to be done with it. Maybe once I’ve had a chance to wear it out dancing once or twice, and have recovered with an easier project or two, I’ll decide I love it even more than watching the movie again.

Pattern Alterations and Changes

Skirt

I drafted a 3/4 circle skirt pattern to replace the Cambie skirt. I wasn’t sure what type of skirt the La La Land Dress had, but given the lack of darts and the movement when she’s dancing in it it looked to me like some kind of circle skirt, and I wanted to be able to spin without it going all the way up to my waist* and the movie version didn’t look as full as a whole circle skirt. So 3/4 it was.

I used the circle skirt radius calculator here to draft out a 1/4 circle portion of the 3/4 circle skirt and then used 3/4 of the 1/4 circle portion as the pattern.

I did line the skirt since yellow is, regardless of fabric type it seems, generally translucent when worn. Why is that? The lining is very short; I didn’t get enough of the voile to make it longer. But it covers what it needs to cover to make it something I can wear in public. After wearing it a half-circle might have been a closer match, but live and learn: I can’t imagine making two yellow La La Land dresses, but if this is something you might try, go for a half.

Bodice

The front of the Cambie was altered to be straight across.

I altered the bodice darts to be slightly narrower, to allow for gathering similar to the La La Land Dress. I didn’t get quite as much gathering as I wanted, but it’s similar enough and I’m happy with it.

The back was shortened, and straightened to allow for separate sleeves.

And then the Cambie sleeves were altered to make for a cap with that straight bit over the shoulders, and the join altered for the square front and back necklines. Originally I had them about as wide as the movie version, but I had Underwear Visibility Issues, so I moved them in a bit.

The only thing about the original Cambie pattern I didn’t change was the waistband.

Just typing that out exhausts me all over again.

Fabric & Lining

The main fabric is a bright yellow Fabricland rayon, and the lining is the coordinating bright yellow Fabricland cotton voile. Neither were expensive. Then again, the yellow La La Land Dress was made from a cheap Joanne’s polyester the costume designer got on sale, so this may be unique in that the handmade knock-off of the movie dress cost more than the original. I’m ok with that. I intend to dance in this dress, outside, and polyester would not have been pleasant.

Construction

Mostly assembled per Cambie instructions: assemble bodice and skirt, attach each to waistband, install zipper; repeat with lining except for the zipper; sew right sides together along the top, leaving space for the sleeves; sew sleeve outer to sleeve lining, baste into sleeve openings and check fit; hand to allow hem to settle; hem. Nothing here differed from that general order. The only minor change is the hem, which I serged and then turned up once. I hate fussing with the fullness on a wide, round hem, and this makes it just a bit easier.

Sizing Notes

Sewaholic patterns are drafted for pear shapes, which I very much am not; the sizing chart puts me into a size 8-14, but a fairer comparison taking into account body-type differences would be a size 8-10. And this dress is a size 8 with a hefty FBA.

There’s a lot of volume in the hips on both Cambie dresses, and in the 3/4 circle skirt replacement, so the limiting measurements for fit are bust and waist. Both have generous ease–2-3″–so you have room to size down if you want something more fitted, and if you go ahead with the size indicated by your measurements, you won’t end up with a tent.

***Already posted over at The Monthly Stitch. Apologies for those of you who are seeing this for the second time.

**Yes, I said hacking, and I’m not sorry.

*This utterly, utterly failed, as I found when I wore it out dancing. Actual conversation afterwards:

B: I love how floaty it is!

M: Yes! It really goes quite high.

Andrea: It sure does. A little higher than I was planning.

M: Maybe make a pair of matching yellow bicycle shorts.

Andrea: Yeah… believe it or not I made it less full so it wouldn’t go up all the way like that.

B: Really? But it wasn’t so bad.

Andrea: Yes it was. That’s ok.

M: Really, yellow bicycle shorts! Then it looks like you did it on purpose. And you can put “salsa” across the butt.

If you haven’t seen the movie…

…and would like some idea of what I’m talking about: the scene with The Yellow Dress

“A Lovely Night”
(performed by Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone)