Sewing A Vintage 1940's Candy Cane Striped Bathing Suit
I didn't plan for 2020 to be a year of sewing stripes, but it's certainly turning out to be one. After sewing my mini capsule featuring a black and white striped fabric, I started turning to recreating more striped garments. This refashioned vintage 1940's candy cane striped bathing suit is the latest addition to my Year of the Stripes (2020) collection! Here's my process of sewing this vintage style bathing suit.
The original garment
I bought this vintage 1970's / 1980's midi skirt from a local (Singapore) vintage seller via Instagram. I love how the skirt closure is concealed as the left pocket. This also reminds me of the Simplicity 2548 dress pattern that has a dress closure concealed within the pleating of the skirt. Vintage designs are so ingenious!
While the waist of the skirt fits me perfectly, the length of the skirt always seemed a little too long for my petite 157cm / 5' 2" frame. I briefly toyed with the idea of shortening the skirt and using the excess fabric to make ruffles along the hem of the skirt, but quickly decided that's too boring for me. I have done too many refashion projects with the end result being a skirt with ruffles (e.g., this skirt refashion from a 1970's dress, this 1950's pin-up style refashion), so I wanted to do something different this time!
My style inspiration
As usual, I turned to Pinterest for my style inspiration. There were so many striped vintage looks that caught my eye, but considering the minimal yardage available with this midi skirt, I decided to turn my attention to making a bathing suit.
The 1940's seem to be such a great time for a striped bathing suit! The formula for a classic 1940's style striped bathing suit is simple: mini skirt / mini shorts + bustier top = classic beach look.
There are a lot of different variations for the bustier top, but I settled on this interesting ruched version by designer Claire McCardell from the mid 1940's.
Sewing the vintage 1940's style bathing suit
The original skirt is made up of an external red and white candy cane striped polyester chiffon and a white polyester lining. Other than the red halter strings, I did not have to use any additional materials to finish this refashion project.
Sewing the bathing suit bottom
The bottom skirt was a straight-forward make. I simply chopped the striped fabric to my desired length (with hem allowance included) and finished the hem with a double-fold hem.
To make the ultra mini skirt more wearable, I decided to transform the white lining from a skirt to a pair of shorts. To do this without removing the entire lining from the skirt and re-cutting the fabric, I used a very unorthodox method of adding a gusset to the lining. I guess I'm saying unorthodox because I have never seen this method anywhere. Then again, whatever works, works - right?
Here's how I added a gusset and transformed the skirt lining to shorts lining using some remnant lining fabric from chopping the skirt:
- Start by cutting a V in the middle of the skirt
- Cut 2 pieces of rectangular fabric and use them to create the inner side of the legs of the shorts
- Using another rectangular piece of lining fabric as a gusset, complete the crotch
This is definitely not the most elegant way of making a crotch and there was a lot of guessing involved... but it works!
Sewing the bathing suit top
When I got to the point of sewing the vintage style bathing suit top, I lost steam and motivation (and probably was a little put off by having to experiment with drafting the bustier). I ended up putting the project away for a number of weeks.
On a particularly sad day in September, I decided to find a good distraction and found myself going back to this project. I knew sewing and completing would help me gain some sense of control and help me feel better. It really did.
Each side of the bustier front is basically a triangle and the back pieces are rectangles. I made a muslin for just one side of the bustier, made some adjustments, then cut the striped fabric using the muslin as a guide.
Similar to my black and white striped shorts, I also had to match the stripes of different remnant pieces and sew them together to make up a bigger piece of fabric for cutting the pattern out. Can you find the seam in one of the red stripes of the photo below?
I did some weird sewing for the ends of the strap because I was out of fabric by the end I finished and basically, was too lazy to add a button closure (i.e. button and buttonhole). I think tying the bustier around the back looks just as good!
The final look and some thoughts
The purpose of this sewing this vintage style bathing suit is 100% pure experimentation. I don't expect to wear it to a beach any time soon. Dang, I don't expect to BE PHYSICALLY PRESENT at a beach any time soon with this pandemic.
My experience with procrastination with this project has once again reminded me that I need to continue working on being more open to making mistakes. My fear of the perceived challenge of drafting and sewing this top resulted in some unnecessary procrastination. When I finally finished this top, I realised that it really wasn't too difficult. I'd even dare say that this bathing suit top doesn't look so bad at all!
What do you think about this 1940's style bathing suit look? Should I try to recreate this style with some proper bathing suit fabric in the future?
Image sources
- Vintage Vogue Pattern 5165 by BizzieLizzie via Etsy
- Italian postcard by Truus, Bob, and Jan too! via Flickr (circa 1943)
- Photo of French actress Barbara Laage by Nina Leen via Life.com (circa 1946)
- Source unknown
- Two-piece striped bathing suit via Vintage Dancer (circa 1947)
- Vintage bathing suit by Living Threads Vintage via Etsy (circa 1940s)