Mia's Dress

(Client names have been changed for privacy reasons.)

The genetic anomaly.  It's what I think of when I look at Mia in this dress.  I think you know what I'm talking about too.  The genetic anomaly is the girl who is perfectly proportioned.  There is nothing physically imperfect about the girl with this figure.  It makes one sigh and wish, "Why can't this be me?" lol.  And another thing which makes me envious.  She has no identifiable asymetry on her perfectly proportioned figure.  I know, I know, life is unfair to the rest of us mere mortals ;) .  Here is Mia in her very fine dress:

Everything about her dress was absolutely perfect except for one issue--the hemline.  Mia is petite.  While her boyfriend is over 6' tall, Mia is about 5'4" or perhaps slightly shorter.  The dress fit her like a glove.  The straps were perfect, the bodice was fitted beautifully through the bust waist and hips, and there were no draglines or pull lines indicating an ill-fitted dress.  The only change to be made was to shorten the skirt portion of the dress.

Easy enough, right?  Not so easy in this dress.  This skirt is lined and the hemline seam is sandwiched on the INSIDE of the lining and dress fabrics and is interfaced (presumably with horse hair for crispness).  There are two ways to go about this fix:  the traditional, more expensive method of seam ripping an opening at the seam that joins the dress bodice to the skirt to access the hemline, thus working to make the changes from the inside, and the less expensive method of turning up the hemline and stitching the new hemline to the lining.  The first is much more time consuming and costly, the latter is quick and less expensive.
 
Obviously, if this was a wedding dress, I would opt for the first method.  It is the correct way to do the alteration and worth the investment on a pricy gown.  The goal is perfection for that one (hopefully one ;) ) perfect day in a woman's lifetime.  A prom gown, on the other hand, can be fudged with a similar, effective result that looks great.  The issue here is money.  Prom gowns for the girls I'm working with generally run in the $200-$450 range.  I try to keep their alterations at $100 or less and give them options.    Most alterations will run between $35 and $65 because I opt for the most economical fix which is the route virtually all girls (and moms) opt to do. 

Thus, Mia's dress was measure the hemline, turn under, and stitch.  The original bottom hemline was catchstitched to the lining.  About every 8-10", I tacked down the hem at the sides and back with several additional stitches to prevent "heel catch".  You know when the heel of your shoe catches on a dress hem and rips the stitches?  That is what I'm talking about.  Tacking at regular intervals would prevent the entire hem from coming loose depending on how bad a heel gets caught in the hemline.

The end result was a dress with a beautiful fit and a hemline that worked given her height with heels.  Mia not only chose an exquisite dress that perfectly molded to her figure, but one in a style and color that was extremely flattering.