Normally I’d avoid spelling the Peek in sneak peek incorrectly, but I just couldn’t pass up the fun play on words considering it was Peaky Blinders that inspired this dress! And if you’ve watched the series, you’d know the family name is Shelby, and so I named my dress appropriately, inspired by all things Peaky.
If you missed it, check out The Shelby Dress inspiration/mood board here.
If you haven’t watched the series, I’d strongly suggest you do… BECAUSE IT’S AMAZING. However, not knowing the reference doesn’t take away from the cute factor and I CANNOT WAIT to debut the final dress next week -EEEEK! Though in truth, I have not seen it yet myself, but fingers crossed it will be available for custom order June 1st and you will love it as much as I do!
Because this is so fun for me, I thought I’d share a few design details so you can see a bit of the process behind creating The Shelby Dress. Below are the original technical drawings and pattern pieces included in the first mock-ups of the dress.
Below are the original sample swatches I chose… though they’ve changed ever so slightly since.
Below is the first muslin sample dress created based on the first tech drawings above…
Besides the fact that it’s in muslin and not my fabrics, a few changes to the design have been made as well AND though it’s not what the final dress will look like, it’s so fun seeing the designs come to life!
My goal was to design a dress that can get dressed up or down, perfect for summer weddings with bright accessories, for date nights with sexy heels, or for day trips paired with cute sneakers and sportier accessories… because those are my favorite dresses in my closet. The dresses I grab whenever I have somewhere to go in a pinch that I already know look and fit great and that I feel comfortable in. I can’t WAIT to see it finished in my fabrics and style it in 100 different ways… okay, maybe not 100, but at least the three listed above!
I chose a gorgeous black lace for the top that has a limited amount of yardage, which means this dress will be a limited edition based on how many we can custom make with the lace we have. This is exciting for me because you know I love one-of-a-kind pieces, so this will be as close to that as possible.
We’re working on my labels and fine-tuning the details and fingers crossed the final dress will be ready to custom order by June 1st {which also happens to be my birthday!} YAY! Oh I just can’t wait!
