Serendipity (AKA the Rachel Menken Suit)

What is a Mad Men Challenge without a candy cigarette?

As soon as Julia announced the third Mad Men Challenge, I knew I had to join up, and I started immediately looking for inspiration. I started a Pinterest board. I binge watched Mad Men. There are so many beautiful outfits to choose from! One in particular stood out to me. Rachel Menken's watemelon-coloured suit from Season 1 Episode 6: Babylon. The colour is FANTASTIC, the collar is interesting, and everything about it is so sophisticated and beautiful. I knew that I had to make it.

Photo from Tom and Lorenzo's Mad Style

A few weeks later, my Mom and I went on a girl's roadtrip to visit my Grandma. This usually includes a stop or two in antique stores along the way. We were browsing through some old patterns, most of which were ugly 70's things, and found the perfect pattern for the project. It was uncut, in factory folds, and only one size off of my vintage pattern size. Hurray!
 
Now came the next challenge: finding the perfect fabric. My local fabric store appears to have a large collection of fabrics, but the majority of it is either quilting cottons or crazy printed dance/performance wear fabric. I went shopping prepared with a list of a few different outfit options in case I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. After browsing for about twenty minutes, it looked as if I wasn't going to find anything, until I happened upon the perfect shade of watermelon!

So I had my fabric, I had my pattern, now all that was missing was the accessories. It just so happened that I had the perfect floral print scarf in my collection, as well as matching lipstick and nail polish. This project truly was meant to be!

 

Pattern:

Jacket from Butterick 2213, Size 18, graded down to size 16.
Skirt from Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing

Fabric and Notions:
Watermelon Bengaline fashion fabric
Cream Bemberg Rayon lining
Fusible Interfacing
2 Cream buttons
1 9" Cream zipper

Mad Men Challenge

Hello Chickadees!

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past six or so years, you have probably heard of the AMC show Mad Men. For those of you not in the know, Mad Men follows the stories of a handful of advertising executives and their families in the 60's. It is a delight to watch. Even if you don't like the characters, it's worth watching for the costumes and styling alone.

 For the past 2 years, Julia from JuliaBobbin has hosted a Mad Men inspired sewing challenge. You pick an outfit from any of the past seasons, or an outfit inspired by the past seasons, and recreate it! There have been some INCREDIBLE projects!

Here are a few of my favourites:

 

Betty's Picnic Dress 

 

Joan's Wiggle Dress

 Peggy's Plaid Dress

Check out the roundups for Round One HERE and Round Two HERE

I love Mad Men, so I'm super excited about this challenge. I've recently become obsessed with early to mid 60's fashion, so this is exciting. Now the challenge is to pick an outfit to recreate! I'm leaning toward something from the earlier seasons, as I'm more fond of the colours and styles from the early 60's.

To read more about Mad Men Challenge part 3, or to join in the fun, click HERE
 
Stay tuned for more planning posts.

Love,
Rachael