It’s no secret that one of my favorite flavor combinations is chocolate and mint. When my husband’s cousins were in town to visit, they invited us go with them to the locally famous Langham’s Chocolate Buffet, and I knew I had to come up with an appropriately chocolate-themed ensemble.
I’d been looking for an excuse to finish my rescue of this chocolate brown 1940s dress, and it seemed like the perfect occasion. This dress was one of those unfortunate purchases where the description and images didn’t really fully capture the condition of the piece. The net neckline was completely shot, there were some very visible mends and staining, and the skirt had been substantially shortened at some point.
As I’ve mentioned before, I really hate cutting into or substantially altering vintage garments, and I tend to only do it when I don’t think they’re wearable in their current condition. Cutting into something 70 years old is always terrifying, and I wouldn’t want to risk ruining something in good condition.
I had replaced the mesh neckline quite some time ago with a modern green net since I couldn’t find a matching brown, but the incredibly short skirt was still an issue. With a deadline to get the dress prepped, I was finally motivated to take action. I preserved the original peplum and shortened the rest of the skirt to just below it as a second layer, then I took as much of the removed fabric as I could and fashioned a second hip drape below the original one.
Next, I set about making a very last-minute skirt to go with. A while back, I had purchased something claiming to be a brown rayon crepe with the intention of using it to make up for the missing length on the dress. Unfortunately, the fabric wasn’t at all what I had hoped it would be, but with the time crunch I threw together the quickest six-gore skirt I could manage, complete with really sloppy hemming job and no proper waist closure, and called it good enough.
I finished the ensemble off with green seamed stockings (I mean, I had them, and they matched…) and my trusty new shoes, plus a nice chocolatey hat.
(Proper confession: this isn’t exactly what I wore for that outing, because the day proper was cold, windy, and quite rainy, so we didn’t exactly dawdle around or step outside to get photographs. The day-of outfit looked like so:
but it was such a good outfit that I had to reprise it so that I could take proper photos. End of blogger realism confession.)
Oh, and the chocolate buffet? Pretty good, but overwhelmingly sweet. I think my favorite things didn’t actually have any chocolate in them at all!
1940s fur tilt hat: Etsy
Green bakelite earrings: Antique shop somewhere in Wisconsin
1940s rayon floral peplum blouse: Instagram sale purchase
Green belt: Borrowed from another dress
Brown six-gore skirt: Made by me
Green back-seam stockings: What Katie Did
Brown suede cut-out oxfords: Royal Vintage Shoes “Alice”
I love this outfit – I don’t have many clothes in shades of brown – you have inspired me to experiment!