1912-14 Summer Day Dress: Design and Inspiration

So I'm currently stumbling my way through making a ca. 1912-1914 summer day dress from scratch. Because I'm doing this from scratch and because I'm not trained in pattern making I'm finding the whole endeavour rather frustrating!

So to help me feel a bit more inspired, I thought I'd share my Design and Inspiration for the dress.

The main inspiration really comes from Lady Sybil's beautiful purple dress that we see in the first season of Downton Abbey. This is because I had metres of plain purple cotton laying around that I wanted to do something with.

Looking at Sybil's purple dress I think it's made with a cotton sateen, a silk blend or something similar, definitely not the daggy cheap, plain cotton like I have!

However, I also took inspiration from Lady Mary who sports this plain striped cotton dress (made for her character by the costume designer on the show) on a couple of occasions:

And the lower class kitchen maid Daisy, who wears this costume (which by the looks of it could almost be an original garment from the era. I know TV Shows such as Downton tend to use antique clothing that is still in good condition).

Oh course, I can't base an 'historical' garment completely on costumes from a TV series. So I've also looked to fashion prints from the era for inspiration as well:

This print is from Summer 1913.

Whilst these are from 1913-14

And these are from American magazines dating around 1914-15.

There are also some great surviving dresses from the era, such as this one:

This dress is from Steel Magnolias Vintage Clothing here.

I was also inspired by the day dress made by the blogger American Duchess which is pictured below (Click on image to link to her amazing blog and blogpost):

And here is where mine is at now:

Wish me luck!