Historical Fortnightly: #10: Literature

The Challenge: Literature - I decided to be a lemming and do the Great Gatsby like everyone else
Fabric: Silk!
Pattern: My own!

A few weeks ago, this dress came up on ebay and I HAD to have it. I LOVE it. It's now in my collection and it truly is stunning in person.

The extant dress is very interesting in terms of shapes. I took a lot of detailed measurements and examined the seamlines. The front of the skirt is a normal circle skirt front. It measures 42" from end to end. The back of the skirt has a "pedal" hem. There are four pedals, each are 16" from high amp to high amp, 6" vertical, and have 9" of null space between them at the widest point.

I didn't bother with the silk tulle much because it is mostly gone. There were probably 8 triangles hanging down at one point but not anymore.

The front of the skirt is lightly gathered.

The cummerbund waist is 9 1/4" long on the angled sides, 7" down the center where the flowers are. Across the top of the cummerbund waist is 16", the middle is 17", and the lower edge is 18 1/4".

The back of the cummerbund waist is straight across at the top but curved at the bottom edges; the front of the cummerbund waist is "bow tied" shape.

The top on the extant looks to be a straight tank top style top. The front of the top is straight across the bottom edge, which helps to give the bodice area shaping. It's only 9" from the underarm to the top of the cummerbund waist.

I'm still working on the tank top top for my dress because I haven't perfected it yet, but I think the issue I'm having with it isn't "pattern" as much as I need to move the gathers to the edges and not the center bottom of the top.
Year: Probably about 1927.
Notions:Thread. I do have some flowers for the center of the dress but I got mad at the flowers (I had put them on slightly off center) and they are sitting in the bad craft pile for now.
How historically accurate is it? Very. Dupioni silk was popular in the 1920's and they had sewing machines!
Hours to complete: Roughly five?
First worn: May 18th. It was too cold to wear by itself so I had a long white sweater over it. Still, it looked cute and the skirt is completely awesome on this dress.
Total cost: Mom bought the silk as a birthday present so none!

I know the pictures aren't the best but this really is a fun dress. I think I might tweek it a bit more and wear it to opening reception at Dress U.