ANTIQUE AESTHETIC: Making a c.1923 Butterick Dress: The Pattern

As a vintage fashion enthusiast, I'm always trying to add pieces of clothing inspired by my favorite decades into my wardrobe for events and for everyday life. I find that there are very few, if any, reproduction clothing companies that specialize in those eras, being the 1920s-1930s, and the ones that do exist are way above my price range. To combat this problem, I've bought a few reproduction patterns in an attempt to make the items myself in my particular style at a reasonable price. I had always held off on buying real vintage patterns, mostly because of the chance some pattern pieces may be missing, and also, again, because of the understandably high prices(these patterns are almost 100 years old at this point).

While venturing down the rabbit hole of Etsy I happened upon a circa 1923 Butterick pattern, in my size, for a steal, and I couldn't pass it up. The pattern is for an open front over-dress closed with a belt, with a slip underneath, a common style of the period.

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The pattern - I don't believe it has ever been used except for the slip, which would explain its disappearance.

The pattern, as was expected, was missing the two pieces for the slip. Luckily for me, I have a reproduction 1930s bodice pattern that is surprisingly similar to the top of the slip, so I figured I could, with some tweaking, make my own version of the slip pattern and be able to construct the dress almost as if nothing was missing.

To make this experience as authentic to the 1920s as possible, I also used Art of Dressmaking by Butterick from 1927 to assist me in techniques from the era, and used this book exclusively to answer any questions about construction I might have had.