50's Designer Dresses

I have found a couple designers from the 50's that I adore. Ceil Chapman, an American designer was an expert draper and made beautiful dresses, including this shelf-bust dress.

Anne Fogarty makes some of my favorite dresses with a beautiful sillouette. 

I've seen several patterns come up for sale in the $90 range. I finally scored my own on eBay for $3.00! It is a size 9, bust size 30, so it will have to be sized up rather significantly. Anne did a number of dresses in velvet which would make this a great winter dress.

The pattern calls for 6 yards of fabric, and with velvet costing about $26 per yard, it's going to cost a pretty penny!