Kate Spade Knockoff - S 2724

I saw this Kate Spade Cloey dress several months ago online and fell in love with it. If there is one thing I love me, it is some ruffles, bows, and flounces. I don't watch Glee, but I do keep up with Emma Pillsbury's fashion, and she recently was spotted wearing it in a different colorway. Isn't her cardigan just cute with it? It is already hot in South Alabama, so when it get cooler again, I will have to get me a cardigan for my dress.

Kate Spade's dresses unfortunately run over $400, way out of my budget for a dress, but it didn't look too difficult to make. I had purchased a gorgeous tweed-ish fabric from my local fabric retailer a few months before that I knew would be perfect for the skirt portion. I purchased some 100% polyester poplin from fabric.com for the bodice and set to work. I started with S 2724. I used the bodice for the dress with the ruffle down the front. However, since I was going to do a bow and a flounce, I drafted a different facing for the neckline.





Then I morphed the flounce from B 5284 View B onto the front of the bodice. It did not fit exactly, but it was within the seam allowance, so it worked. To make the bow , I just sewed two rectangles of white poplin together, leaving an opening to turn them inside out. The I wrapped a piece of fabric around the center. It is held onto the front of the dress with two snaps. I chose to do a straight skirt instead of an a-line like the original Kate Spade dress and attached an orange grosgrain ribbon at the waist.

Here is a closeup of the skirt fabric:

Here is my dress:




Here is a closeup of the bodice. I originally had turned under a narrow hem on the edge of the flounce, but it looked ugly, so I just did a rolled hem with my serger. My bow and flounce are a little less dramatic than the Kate Spade version, but I am very happy with it.