Conquering the Walkaway Dress

If you like mid-century fashion and you like sewing,  you've probably seen the Butterick 4790 pattern, also known as the Walkaway Dress and originally numbered as Butterick 6015.  A wrap dress in 3 pieces with only 3 seams this dress was originally released in 1952.  According the the Vintage Patterns Wiki,

"...[I]t was dubbed the 'walk-away' dress, because it was so easy you could "Start it after breakfast... walk-away in it for luncheon!".

It's simple yet flattering wrap design and easy construction were what made it so popular. Sales of the pattern were so great, that at one point manufacturing of all other patterns ceased, and only the 'walk-away' dress was produced until all back-orders for this dress could be filled."

 One look at the pattern's front illustration and you can understand why this dress was a phenomenon unto itself - it looks effortlessly elegant.

I mean, look at the girl in the blue version - she's like Elizabeth Taylor going to the farmer's market.   The girl in the black and white dress looks so chic and polished (and OMG the gloves!!)  To achieve that sort of glamour with a pattern billed as "Quick & Easy", well who wouldn't want to make this???

Unfortunately, the photo accompanying the reissue of this pattern isn't nearly as flattering...

This is either the world's fanciest hospital gown, or fluffiest apron.

Despite the questionable image above, I was determined to make this dress.  I read a lot of reviews from other home sewers and found all sorts of fit issues.   Luckily, I happened on a great tutorial on how to make a finished garment that looks like the pattern illustration on Edelweiss Patterns' blog.  I bought a fun cherry print fabric in a cotton/poly blend from Amazon - the black was not as saturated as I would've liked, but the fabric had a really nice, crisp hand, which worked very well for keeping the circle skirt flared without the aid of a petticoat. 

How retro!  How fun!

I made the modifications suggested by Edelweiss Patterns - turning all biases to the inside, redrawing the upper back piece to taper out in a diagonal line so that the front closure is less of a U-shape (as the above photograph shows) and stays true to the V-shape of the original drawing - and also made a number of modifications of my own. 

First, I took ~2 inches off the front piece at the waist.  I'm quite short waisted and found that when I wrapped the front piece, it closed below the narrowest part of my waist.  This resulted in a bizarre (and unflattering) shifting of the front up, so that the shoulder seams were actually sitting above my shoulders.  Speaking of shoulders, I also rounded the shoulder seams, taking in 1/2 inch at the collar side and increasing to 1 inch on the arm side.  I had read another review of this dress where the dress wearer complained that the dress kept pulling back, which the sewer contributed to the weight of the circle skirt being much heavier that the front sheath piece.  There may be some truth in this, although I found my alterations solved this problem.  Just to be sure, though, I finished the circle skirt with a very narrow hem, but the front with a deep hem, to give it a little extra weight. 

Here's the finished product on Colette, my dress form (please excuse the mess):

After taking the dress out for a test drive, I realized that even though I had added an extra snap to the front closure (bringing the total to 4 snaps), I still had a near wardrobe-malfunction when setting my toddler down.  Luckily, this was easily remedied by a hook-and-eye closure. 

Hook-and-eye and four snaps - do you think I'll set off a metal detector?

All in all, this is definitely a pattern I'd make again, and has garnered tons of compliments from strangers.