The Joan Holloway copy-cat

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to announce my most recent celebrity copy-cat dress; the Joan Holloway.

I modelled it off this dress worn by the character Joan in Mad Men.

This dress is in perfect theme of my latest (and well.., first) sewing group challenge: to re-create a mad men dress! If you missed my last post and want to join in on the fun you can check out the details here

I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with! I am going to need some serious massage therapy come April 1^st; the muscles in my neck and back are all jammed up in anticipation and extreme excitement.

I have created with considerable help from my husband Mr. Robin Bobbin (Robin input 99% - Julia input 01%) a shiny new blogger button for the Mad Men Dress challenge (note, I cannot guarantee shiny-ness).

<center><a href="http://www.juliabobbin.com/2012/02/mad-men-dress-challenge-you-in.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7189/6890944447_3fc1efa18a_o.png" width="150" height="150" alt="Mad Men Challenge Blogger Button" /></a></center>

Isn’t it lovely? So for those of you who want to show on your blogs that you’re participating in the challenge, just copy the HTML in the grab box below and let’s make magic. (Disclaimer – I don’t know how to make actual magic; never got my Hogwarts letter).

So … back to my latest copy-cat dress!

When I first saw it on the screen the cogs in my brain (I like to pretend there’s more than one in there) started turning and I go into a state that can only be described as a ‘lust-over-a-dress-shock’ (L O A D S). 


This is where my brain starts feverishly working over time trying to deduce how it can re-create this visual delight. I try and get my head around the idea that no, at 1pm in the morning/night the fabric stores are not open and there is no point getting in your car and camping out in front of one of them till morning (and crying CERTAINLY won’t help).


To anyone witnessing me going into LOADS it might appear that I have turned into stone or perhaps looked a Basilisk in the eye (nasty beasts), but if you look carefully you’ll notice the pools of drool start to trickle down the side of my face and that’s the sign that I am still alive. ish.

There is something about the combination of blue and white together that delights my senses, and coincidentally also gives me the urge to sail a boat.

Naturally I love the shape of this dress of Joanies. As all Joanie dresses do, they pull in at the waist and hug the curves in scandalous-disguised-as-conservative ways.


These sorts of dresses make me feel good. Plain and simple.
I guess it’s the most flattering shape for my figure and I’m always satisfied with the end result when I replicate this shape.

You know, when I purchased this fabric and cut out the dress I got sidetracked with another project and almost didn’t continue with this dress - gee, I wonder if I'm the only sewer with this problem ... I’m so glad that I picked it up and got re-inspired again as I love how it turned out.

Once again I pulled out a recent favourite, Butterick pattern #5603 which I used to aid me in re-creating my Peggy Olson dress.

The bodice of this dress has such a lovely shape and mimics vintage beautifully. It has a lovely wide bateau neckline and a darling V shaped back neck.

I love the high empire waist of this pattern, which emphasises the waist to contrast nicely again the width of the hips.

As before with the Peggy dress I completely changed the skirt of this pattern for the pencil skirt instead of a full panelled skirt that goes with the pattern. 


Here's a picture from the Butterick website of how the dress looks when you completely follow the pattern. It's beautiful but quite different to my finished look!

The skirt I used has four darts at the front and the darts on the pattern piece didn’t line up with the darts on the original skirt that comes with the pattern. This just won’t do!

I used my re-drafted pattern from my Peggy dress where I took the time to slash and cut to move the darts in the bodice to line up perfectly with my skirt darts. You can see in more detail how I did this on my previous post here.

I added white ribbon trim around the front and back neck.

Just like the inspiration dress I added the white ribbon down the front of the dress starting from under the bust. The ribbon ran parallel with the centre front all the way down to the skirt hem.

I then hand sewed 8 lovely buttons to the left of the trim to mimic the inspiration piece.

What is it about buttons and bows that turn me on so much? I never thought I was a real girly-girl but I think I have just always been in denial. I’m probably as girly-girl as you can get.
Wow, I feel so much better getting that out in the open.

I added my own little sleeves to the bodice as the Butterick pattern doesn’t come with sleeves.

And yes I do own an iron, I don't know what is going on with the sleeves here.

Other changes:

I fully lined the dress – the Butterick pattern only gets you to line the bodice.

I moved the zipper to the centre back instead of the side seam and I used an invisible zipper to close

I cut the bodice 12, waist in a 10 and used my own skirt with a size 14 from the hips down (sigh).

I love how this dress turned out! When I wear this I really feel like I am wearing something that no one else has and it satisfies all my vintage urges.

And there you have it!

Looking forward to seeing all the Mad Men delights for the challenge. Any one started their Mad Men dress yet?