Derby Day 2011
Greg & I went to Derby Day on Saturday. It’s traditional for women to wear black & white on Derby Day, though you occasionally see a few girls wanting to stand out dressed head to toe in a single colour (often red). Unsurprisingly I decided to make a new dress to wear. I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by any of the patterns in my collection so I drafted my own. I made a simple fitted dress with princess seams & a boatneck. I added a waistline & some peplums around the waist. I decided on a white top, black skirt & some small panels of red underneath the peplums. Here I am posing in front of one of the lovely rose gardens at Flemington.
I haven’t really blogged about it, but I’m on a bit of a stash busting mission at the moment, so limited myself to only sewing with what I already have for this project. I used left over fabric from my reversible evening dress for the skirt & red highlight panels & I used a white broadcloth from my interfacing/interlining stash for the top. Because the broadcloth was a little rough I lined the dress with a silk cotton blend leftover from lining this dress.
The dress came together reasonably easily, though I always find princess seams a bit finicky. I used silk organza strips to stabilise the neckline & armholes & added horsehair braid to the peplums to give them a little more ‘flounce’. I was really happy with the results, in fact I might make this dress again this summer but in a softer printed cotton to wear as a sundress.
We had a lovely day at the races. Our friend held a BBQ in the members area & we had a wonderful time there sipping champagne & chatting with our friends (if you are a VRC member you can book certain areas & bring in BBQ equipment & so on to have a party – it’s really very nice). We put a few bets on too. Whilst Greg lost on every race (except one), I won on almost every race, so we ended up going home with more money than when we arrived, which is always nice.
I wore a vintage hat I bought last year. I’m so in love with it, I’ve worn it to two Derby Days in a row now. Greg wore his wedding suit & no, he hasn’t just forgotten to throw away the buttonhole from our wedding, it’s a Corn Flower buttonhole, which is the flower of the day on Derby Day. Each day of the Spring Racing Carnival has a flower dedicated to it & the men often wear the flower of the day as a button-hole, you can see all of the days and the corresponding flowers here.
Later in the day we went for a wander to see the horses we picked for the McKinnon Stakes. This was Greg’s pick, Efficient. I won some money on him in the 2007 Melbourne Cup but he didn’t do very well on Saturday & came in at the back of the field.
This was my pick, Glass Harmonium. He won. As you can probably tell by the photo, he was pretty spirited.
Love the peplum!