This particular piece was inspired by "Swingtime" a classic film starring Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.  The scene refers to a gentleman "Lucky" a gambler and show biz dancer who was hit with love at first sight to "Miss Carol" played by Ginger Rogers.  When he finds out that Miss Carol is a teacher at a dance studio, he pays for a lesson and clumsily pretends he cannot dance.  She gets so angry and frusterated with him for following her, she is overheard by her boss and fired.  In order to save her job, Lucky instantly remembers he can dance and joins Miss Carol in a musical number to a lively tune with the chorus "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again".  It is not hard to be a fan of this movie, and we found a customer who was just as enthusiastic to privately commission this piece.

The first challenge on this particular piece was the material.  In studying the movie, the material was a heavily pleated material which continued throughout the dress.  Unfortunately the material was unattainable and the customer in this case did not have the budget to do extensive hand pleating.  Thus this reproduction was created without the pleating.  The dress was constructed out of black chiffon and lightly pleated ivory duponi silk for the collar.  This particular piece, excepting the pleated material was re-created with every detail.  The dress features hand created chiffon covered buttons on the front.  The sleeves were capped with matching ivory silk around the cuffs, and a bow around the back.  The skirt on this piece incorporates over 5 yards of material to spin as it does in the musical number and was made in a plus size to accomodate the customer's measurements to wear to a dance.

In this side detail, you can see the cuff, the view of the back bow, the silhouette of the covered buttons, and a side view of the collar piece.  For more detailed shots, view the image slideshow below.