Last fall I became obsessed with the Korean fashion designers on YesStyle.com. I think the website is actually based in Hong Kong. But it’s the Korean stuff I really liked.
I’ve been obsessed with all things Korean ever since David and I spent 12 hours in the the Korean Airport. Korea has the best airport in the world. Its quiet, its modern, the food is good, Gate 40 has been turned into a Korean Cultural Center where you can browse books on Korean art and architecture and women in traditional dress show you how to paint fans, and best of all there is a $7 spa a short shuttle bus ride away. Make sure to take off your shoes before stepping on the wood floors.
A lot of the outfits on the site are things I could never imagine wearing. But the color combinations—especially the choice of backgrounds for the photographs—are amazing (at least to my earth-tone and gray loving self). I suppose this was one bridge between last year’s painting and this year’s sewing:
Some things, though, like this colorblock dress seemed simple enough for me to pull off, or at least to adapt to my non-Korean-supermodel figure:
Here’s my version:
I made this pattern from my sloper by tracing off the bodice and cutting it apart along the dart lines. I closed up the bust dart by rotating the top piece to make a vertical princess seam, then straightened out the edges and added seam allowance to everything. I made a muslin just of the top part of the dress, which helped me figure out that the front panel needed to be made narrower. Here’s the pattern I ended up with. Blue lines show where the dart lines were:
The bottom parts of the dress are just big rectangular bands of fabric, pinned in place to check where they fell, then sewn on. To finish the dress I cut facings and sewed these to the neckline, bound the armscyes to close in the facings, and top-stitched the princess seams to make them a bit more prominent:
I’m normally not crazy about un-fitted dresses but I think in this case it works well. If the dress were fitted at the waist the bright stripe at my hips would make them look really wide. As it is I think the color gives the dress more shape. Also it’s roomy enough to go over my head without a zipper opening—one less thing to sew!
Leon Barnard | 25-Jun-09 at 2:10 am | Permalink
Looks great. But looking at your reference photos, it’s clear that you need to work on your poses
Maybe next time you can try jutting one hip out and leaning in the opposite direction (a la pic #3). And throwing in a little attitude, of course 
Nice colors. You could also try doing a google image search for Hanbok. The colors used for those tend to be bold, but nicely contrasting. Might be good for a splash here or there.