I was looking forward to watching La La Land when I saw the trailer well before Christmas. My husband wasn’t so enthusiastic! You just know when you are going to love a film and I knew I would love this film. Yes, I saw the headlines and heard about the awards, but it didn’t matter to me as I couldn’t wait to see it and didn’t really care if it had bad reviews. (It didn’t by the way!).
Readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of the 1950’s and 1950’s style dresses in particular! I was even surprised that the film was set in modern day as from the trailer and the pictures I had seen, the women were all wearing lovely summer A line frocks!
Why not make your own? The spotty yellow sundress in the opening credits of La La Land I coveted from the moment I set eyes on it. This is just my style. Indeed, my mind was going round with buying spotty yellow fabric and making a dress from a similar pattern that I have and that has been well used. The Butterick B4443 easy dress pattern can be adapted for 6 different styles of basically the same dress. I’ve made a few dresses from this pattern and its really easy. https://butterick.mccall.com/B4443
Indeed, there is a lovely article in the Guardian newspaper about the joys and benefits of wearing yellow, based on Emma Stones’s dress.
I love these 1950’s collar style shirts too. I first saw them on Mad Men, when Betty Draper used to wear them all the time, back in the early series. I did actually buy several similar designs last summer from Marks and Spencer’s; a lovely light lemon one and a pretty blue blouse which is an exact copy of the one in the picture below that Emma Stone is wearing.
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This leads us to the halterneck dress. I have a couple of these lovely dresses that I have purchased from Boden over the years. They do get worn on exceptionally hot days in the summer and mainly also on holiday in the summer sun! I do like this style of dress, not many people seem to wear it much and prefer the strappy sundresses that are often in abundance. However, I think it looks classy and has a lovely old fashioned theme to it.
There is a nice looking halterneck dress from New Look patterns. I’ve never made one of these dresses, but let me know if you have and if it is easy or difficult to make. ttp://www.simplicitynewlook.com/6457/
Finally that brings me onto the sweetheart neckline, again very stylish and classy. This neckline has been around for ages and does wonders for emphasising the bust area. These necklines are often low cut. They are traditionally used for more formal wear, especially wedding dresses.
It was quite hard finding a sweetheart neckline dress sewing pattern that would be do-able. However the Sewaholic Cambie dress with sweetheart neckline looks as though it could be made into a stunning dress. I might give it a try.
http://www.sewaholicpatterns.com/cambie-dress-pdf-sewing-pattern/
There you go! Lots of fabulous inspiration for making your own La La Land clothes! Let me know how you all get on! Roll on the summer now when we might actually be able to wear them!
Lizzy's Homemade 