Alteration - Indian dress Part 1

My mom recently sent me a summer dress of hers. It no longer suits her style. She felt that I might be able to do something with it. I hung it in a spare bedroom for a few weeks while thinking about what to do with it. It is made of multiple layers of rayon in a patterned bright yellow fabric (my Mom's favorite color).

Overnight I came up with a concept (I often fall asleep thinking about my next creative endeavor, be it astronomy research, teaching, or craft). In the morning, I studied the dress further and started seam ripping. I got as far as starting to sew a new seam on the bodice.

Concept

My mom gives nick-names to objects she cares about. She's named favorite cars "Titine", "Vert-tilleul", the "Ascona" (OK, that one was just the model). She always referred to this dress as "la robe indienne", the Indian dress. Because it's made in India. The fabric, the construction, and the name gave me the concept for my alteration.

The outfit above was loaned by students of mine, in celebration of an Indian festival on campus. The main part of the concept that I am going to borrow is the dupatta (the stole). For the rest, I am going to reconstruct the dress to fit me and be more fitted. 

Dress construction

The dress is high waisted (almost empire style). On my petite frame, the waist details fall at my natural waist. I am going to keep that waist placement.

Fake buttons and piping decorate the bodice. The seam that attaches the bodice to the skirt is hidden under the third cord. The bodice is made up of two layers of sheer fabric, with the under layer matching the design on the skirt.

The skirt is made of a different pattern fabric than the bodice. It is lined with a solid yellow underskirt, and over it, there is a second layer of paneled fabric, matching the bodice.

There is a zipper closure on the back of the dress.

Dress deconstruction

I started by removing the cord that was hiding the seam between the bodice and the skirt, then separated the skirt from the bodice. I separated the zipper from the skirt but left it attached to the bodice. 

The third cord removed, revealing the seam that ties the skirt to the bodice

The bodice separated from the skirt

I further separated the panels from the skirt and set both aside. I studied the bodice and thought about how to alter it to fit me. I settled on ripping the princess seams and the side seams, leaving the front seam and back zipper alone. This has the added advantage to reduce the size of the armholes.

I detached the two remaining cords, just past the princess seams, and also undid the arm hole finishing (the white lace and bias tape) from back princess seam to front princess seam. They will be a challenge to put back neatly. I am going to work on one side of the bodice at a time, so I have the other as a model to reconstruct the finishing.

The cords cleared from the side seams and the princess seams at the waist

I figured out how many centimeters had to be removed from the girth of the bodice and distributed that around each seam (6 seams total, 4 princess and 2 sides). That turned out to be 8 centimeters. 8 does not divide by 6 neatly, so I divided it the following way: take off 2 cm at each side seam and 1 cm at each princess seam. 2 x 2 cm + 4 x 1 cm = 8 cm. This turned out to be equivalent to cutting each seam flush (remove the existing seam allowance), then sew anew, with 1cm seam allowance on the sides and 0.5 cm seam allowance for the princess seams.

Having the larger seam allowance at the side seams works best not only because of the math, but also because the side seams are French seams (and so take extra seam allowance).

Today I got as far as doing one side seam.