- It is often claimed that Diane Von Furstenberg, invented the wrap dress in 1972, but there were earlier wrap dresses.

During The Great Depression, house dresses with a wrap design, called Hooverettes were popular.

There were also wrapped dresses by Elsa Schiaparrelli in the 1930s, and by Claire McCardell in the 1940s, whose original Popover design became the basis for a variety of wrap-around dresses.

Today on "Fit 2 Stitch", we explore how to master the drape, and keep that wrap all wrapped up.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Fit 2 Stich" is made possible by, Kai Scissors, Bennos Buttons, OC Sewing, Orange County, Vogue Fabrics, Pendleton, Imitation of Life, and Clutch Nails.

- I think of all the classics in fashion, for me personally, the wrap dress is the top of the pile.

I just love it, I think it just works well.

But I travel all over the country, and I talk to so many women across this country, and they have one universal concept that they dislike, and that prevents them from wearing that wrap dress, is the gaps and they can't control the gap, and so they kind of oust it out of their wardrobe.

But I wanna look at the wrap dress, and we're first gonna fit it, we're gonna take some concepts.

So we'll show you a couple of ways to approach it, both of these ways are gonna make it really simple and really easy, and I really hope you'll enjoy it, because I do blouses out of it, there's so many things I do with it, and I really know that every time I do it, you know, there's always a compliment to follow, and you can do it too, it's very simple to do.

Lora has agreed to actually let us drape her.

Now what we did... Hi Lora, how are you?

- I'm doing good.

- What we did with this is we took it off the black dress.

We draped her earlier in the black dress, and we used a different pattern, but the base was the same as the black dress.

And so what you'll notice is what she did, is she stitched down the center fronts, 'cause you wanna make sure those center fronts are right in alignment.

So she's got her white line stitched, this is a knit or woven?

- Woven stretch, with slight stretch.

- Okay, so that would really be classified as a woven, because when you come to do your sleeve, what did you do?

- I used the woven sleeve.

- Okay, so there you have it, you kind of have a vision?

- Mh-hmm.

- And what did you do to get your vision?

- Well, again, I went to the closet and I decided that I- - It must be a good closet.

- It must be a good closet.

(laughs) No, truly, I went shopping, again, and I really spent a whole afternoon looking at sleeves, because I thought I had gotten into a rut with sleeves, just a fitted sleeve.

So this pattern interested in me, because of the larger sleeve, I thought I'd try something out.

I wanted to try the collar, I hadn't tried it before, and so that was my vision to have something, just more tailored than dressy.

And I think the wrap dress could do that, it can really be more tailored and formal, or it can be very soft and drapy, it can kind of bridge both gaps.

So again, we're dealing with a princess seam, because a princess seam is so easy to fit.

If you want to do the princess seam, and kind of get that down, and then jump to a non princess seam, I think there's no problem with that.

But I do believe that success comes with baby steps, and sometimes if we jump off the cliff, there's no way to catch the fall.

So I think the princess seam gives us a length issue that we don't even have to deal with, because the length is all built in.

When she picked her size, she measured clothing?

- Yes, again, in my closet.

And basically because I had done a similar pattern before, and I knew how it was going to fit, length-wise I didn't have to worry, depth was gonna be my problem.

- Okay, but we changed up the sleeve, 'cause now we've got a woven sleeve and woven arm hole.

- Absolutely.

- Okay.

So then we're so okay with circumference, and I noticed I've got it, I closed it over here for you.

- Yes.

- And then you just did the dress, but you just cut it off.

- I cut it off because I knew I wanted to wear it with slacks.

- So did you do like the same amount, how'd you do that?

Same amount off each piece, or just- - No, again, this fortunately was a little bit larger in the hips, and I didn't narrow it in the hips, , I basically left the princess style as it was, there were no problems below the bust line, I only narrowed it in from the shoulder to the bust point.

- Okay.

- And the back was the same, and again, with my particular problem, a small wrinkle here- - Okay, all right, so we'll fix all that.

And you can see when you look at her, I'm gonna turn her just a little bit that way, you can really see that gaping that we want there.

That is something we can't fix in the final product, and that's why we're making the muslin We just want our garments to be wrinkle-free, because they'll make us look thinner.

If we have a large bust, the best thing you can do, and I know it's contrary to what so many women think, is you actually make it fit the best, not just bag over you, because when you get bigger, the bigger your clothing gets, the bigger you'll look.

The more fabric you have, just think about that logically, - Right.

- The larger you'll look.

So I know she liked it narrow, so we're gonna use this princess seam.

If you don't have a princess seem to narrow a shoulder, just take your arm hole, I'll show you when we get to the tissue how to go plan B.

If you don't have a princess seam, all you have to do is figure out where you want it, and then I'll show you how to kind of take that arm hole, and move it in so that you don't have to worry about it.

Then we're gonna lift this up just a little bit, this puddling right there, it can be a combination.

It can be a combination that the shoulder angle is not as too square, and because you don't hold up that square shoulder angle, it falls down below and it puddles right here.

This puddle has nothing to do with the arm hole, I think so many women try to put a dart there.

You don't want a dart there, you don't want it there in the muslin, and you don't want it there in the final product, you don't want it anywhere, so let's pick up the shoulder first, and try to fix it in the shoulder seam.

If ever you have a puddle there, go to the shoulder first, rule number one.

- Hh-hmm?

- I think it's rule number five, but we'll call it rule number one.

- I know, but it was a hard rule for me to to learn and to accept.

- It is, and why do you think that is?

- Well psychologically, because you look at where the puddle is, and that's what you wanna correct, right?

- You're so right.

I mean, Lora is answering that and we didn't practice that.

- No, we didn't.

- You know, people most of the time, when you have a problem, you wanna go right to where that problem is and fix it, and what you fail to do, what we all fail to do many times, is look to see what's causing it to be the problem there, and go to the source of the problem, you know, it's kinda like a water leak.

When you have a water leak, it's usually not the problem where the water is, you gotta trace it back to where the direction of the water is going, and I've learned that.

Okay, so there's a water leak there- - Absolutely.

(laughs) - And it's gotta go up here.

Okay, if we turned her sideways again, because what I want you to see is, even as much as I pulled that up, there's still a gap there.

And the next place you're gonna do, you're always gonna go to your seams first, your shoulder seam is a seam, you're always gonna go there first, but the next place you wanna go, just relax your arm, is right here.

And you can see the right there, because whatever cup size she's using, and we're using a pattern that has cup sizing in it, it's still not large enough for her.

Because if you're seeing a dart, we all know where a bust dart goes.

And if I've got a garment and it's a princess seam, but I can still see an opportunity to pin a dart where it once was, then that tells me whatever dart was there, and whatever dart was moved, wasn't large enough in the first place.

So there was a dart there, the pattern maker moved it up here.

It simply was not big enough where it started, because you can see that just cleans up the whole entire side, and it just looks absolutely beautiful.

And that's what I want.

That's not circumference, that's all depth, and that's going to give me the cleanest possible look.

And also the thinnest look, when I go in to do my dressing.

So dart here, dart here, remember that this sews to itself, it's front and back.

This one, we darted it's sews to the back.

So I'm gonna just turn Lora around, and you can see there right there it just kind of continues, and you can see there's some angle issues there, so I'm gonna try to just kind of pay attention to the fabric, and I'm gonna try to stop it at this seam here, the princess seam in the back.

But if you notice when I do that, there's still this diagonal line here, that's what we don't want.

We don't want those diagonal lines, diagonal lines 99% of this time, tell us there's a depth issue.

So circumference is always horizontal, length is usually vertical, it's falling off, and then depth is always diagonal.

So in this case I'm just gonna increase this amount a little bit more, I'll take it to center back, to see if I can't get rid of that angular wrinkle.

Now, remember you're doing this by yourself.

So the best thing to do when you're doing this, is just get a three-way mirror or get a hand mirror.

So that hand right there, Lora could put it up, hold a mirror, and stand backwards into a mirror.

What you wanna be careful of is that you don't twist, because that causes wrinkles.

And the one thing you don't wanna do, is just don't get so crazy persnickety, because it looks beautiful, it just looks so much better now.

So you can see how clean that is.

So either get a three-way mirror, to where you can see the back of you without a problem, or get a hand and just make sure you don't twist.

- All right.

- Let's turn around and look at that.

All right, so we just gotta pinch here, I've got that all measured there, I'll change the tissue, that just looks amazing my dear.

- Well, then we'll see the final version.

- Okay, you got creative?

- Yes, I did get a little creative, because this was a very tailored garment.

I wanted a focal point, which I realized this did not have, and also the fabric while I think it's a beautiful color.

You see just red, you don't see a specific item on the- - So those were the things you struggled with?

- Yes, I struggled with that because I didn't plan ahead.

That was one thing that I didn't do- - If we go back earlier in the show, when we first introduced the whole entire series, we went to the designer, we went to the engineer, and then we went to the sample maker.

So she's finished the design phase or maybe not, 'cause you haven't picked your fabric, but all the pattern work is done, the engineer has done their job, but there's still two areas that, you know, can go askew, is that fair?

- Exactly.

- But I know you're a expert at a sewing, your sewing skills are really, really good, most of yours are, you've sewn for years, you're really good at that, so let's see what you do with the design.

- Sounds good.

- And while you do that, I'm gonna come back to the tissue.

Even before I do that, I wanna show you the mannequins, because I really wanna look at, just exactly what this wrap dress is, and how it differs from the little black dress.

So if you remember Lora, when she stitched, she stitched that white line right at center front.

And what I'm gonna do is take it back to the pattern, and show you where the white line that she stitched was, it's right at center front.

All the wrap does, is it takes both sides, and goes past center front to the princess seam.

That's all it is, it's about a four or five, four inch gain right in here, and it just takes, from the center front it adds, and it adds it on both sides.

Typically because it's done that, it has a facing that faces the front, as well as many times the back is actually double cut.

There's other ways to do it, you can draw just a facing back there, but because your front facing finishes your neck edge, you've gotta have some way to finish this back edge.

If it's a knit, it's gotta be stable, if it's a woven, it's not as critical.

So all the wrap does is it's the same as the little black dress, it just simply goes past center front on both pieces.

So what that does is it gives us an opportunity to really create all kinds of fun designs.

You see here, I've got dark on the sides, which makes me look thinner, light only in the middle, and then I've given you a little bit of focal point, so that you can come to the crystals, and really hone in on where I want you to follow.

And then it leads to all kinds of fun design and pattern play, because I can make the sleeves bigger.

The original Diane Von Furstenberg wrap, actually had ties that went through buttonholes, and went all the way around and wrapped, and did all those kinds of things.

But it gives us lots of room to be creative, and really have a lot of fun with the dresses we're producing.

The good news is, is we've got the fit down, and we're ready to go.

So if we wanted to, we could start with this black dress.

And here what I did, is I put the yardstick right at center front.

And that's the line Lora stitched, because when you're fitting, you wanna make sure that those two center fronts come together.

Notice that the addition that's added here, is just really right about without your seam allowance, right about four inches, four to five inches.

I wanna wrap it to that waist dart, which is what the princess seam is, but not really go any farther than that.

The body changes angles and once I get past that point, it's too complex to wrap around the body, and all kinds of issues start happening.

So the little black dress is just simply with this front added going all the way down, this piece is cut twice, and then of course I've got the facings that will finish it off, but let's go over the changes that we made with Lora.

Remember first we did, we narrowed the shoulder here, a little half inch pinch, and we took it all the way down.

All right, so we're gonna take that in, and we're good to go there.

If I do it here, I've always gotta think about, where does it sew too, it sews to the back, and so in the back I'm gonna do the same amount at the shoulder seam, and remember that the shoulder blade is higher than the bust point, so it's never gonna go as far down in the back as it does in the front.

The front it'll be probably 10 or 11 inches, because it'll go to the bust point.

The bust point is about 12 inches below my shoulder, but in the back here, because it's just the shoulder blade, you'll only find it to go down about four or five inches.

So let me just say that that's a rule of bodies, that even if on yourself, you can't see the drape in the back, but you know you wanna narrow the shoulder, you could simply do it here in the front, and do the same amount of the shoulder in the back, and just take it down four or five inches, and that would do it.

Again, then you can just make up another one, and go from there.

The goal is once I make a muslin, I do my changes, I could either sew that muslin, or make another muslin, it's what we call a clean muslin, to make sure that all the changes have taken effect.

And then we can either use that as our pattern, or we can come back and change the tissue.

All right, so I mentioned to you, and we'll do the other changes, but I wanted to mention to you, if I wanna change the width of the shoulder, and I did not have a princess seam, if for a minute we can just pretend that this is all one piece, but I still wanna bring the shoulder up, I can take the arm hole, and I'm gonna pretend for a minute this French curve is my arm hole.

And I put it down, or I make a template of what that arm hole is.

And all an arm hole does is connect two points, it connects the shoulder seam to the side seam.

So just think of it as a fixed rigid, that connects two points.

And what I'm going to do, is once I copy there where the original is, I'm gonna take the shoulder point and move it in the inch I want to move it in.

The bottom stays here.

Oftentimes when I moved this part of that fixed in, this part comes up a little bit, so I can extend the side seam up and just follow it.

As long as I have these two points, and I wanna move this in, this one's likely to come up and that's okay, the good news is the sleeve will still fit.

So whenever I'm changing the bodice, don't ever go take the changes to the sleeve, because the sleeve didn't do anything wrong.

There's nothing wrong, I always wanna come in and restore the arm hole.

Okay, so the next change she made, was we actually changed the angle of the shoulder.

And when I do that, I wanna put these two pieces together, I'm gonna overlap the seam allowances that are here.

And because remember I picked that up, so that it got rid of my water leak, I'm gonna put that down and change the angle there.

When I do that, I do wanna lower that arm hole down, if it's a half inch here, I lower it half inch here, and bring it all the way back up.

And again, whenever you are making a change like that, if you'll simply draw the arm hole before you start, make all your changes, and then just put the arm hole back on, and just put it between any two points you want, anywhere along the shoulder line, as long as you take it out to the circumference at the bust.

Then again I overlapped these two pieces here, and I redrew that same angle, and remember you don't change the point at the neck line, you simply change it out here.

A shoulder seam is a straight angled line, there's no dip to it, there's no change.

Right along here in the side seam, I brought in a little dart, whatever the width is, you do a double in the tissue, tape it down.

Very simple to do, but again, as simple as this is, I would always recommend using your muslin as your pattern.

And it's not because it's hard, it's just simply because we make mistakes.

And if we think about when it is we sew, sometimes it's 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night, we're a little sleepy, and we swear we didn't make any mistakes, but when we get to the final product, it's like, "Now, what did I do, where did I go wrong?"

So again, remember it was, here's where we wanna match, so that the side seam matches, it tapers smaller, and then it comes across to the back.

So again, very easy changes to do, simple, fun, and I do really believe, even though I love the pattern work more than any other part, and not all of you do, as much as I do.

So we're gonna invite Lora back on, we've made all the changes, we've let her go crazy with her designs, and she's gonna come back and show us what she did.

I did something different, I'm just going to have one earring on.

- Okay, that's okay, we really, really appreciate your sacrifice.

She didn't quite have time, I didn't talk long enough.

(laughs) All right, this is beautiful, beautiful.

- It's different.

- All right, let me just tell you that the original pattern had a collar, and she decided- - I decided I didn't want the collar, I didn't tell her ahead of time.

- That's okay, this is Lora, Lora like to do what to do what Lora like to do, and that's what I love about Lora.

But she just decided to wipe out the collar, so she- (laughs) So what that means is, she has to create a facing for the front, which is already there.

- Right.

- But it means you have to create some way to finish off the back, because in this pattern, the collar finishes the neck edge.

And so what did you decide to do on that?

- I copied the back neck edge, and made a bias piece of the same fabric, top stitched it several times so that it was stable, and then matched the curve of the back neck edge, - Perfect.

- And sewed it up, it was very simple.

- Yeah.

And again, you know what, this is all designer, this is her vision now going crazy, right?

- Going crazy is right.

- Okay, so then what?

- Then I decided that I wanted to wear this with slacks.

- So she cut off the bottom.

- So, I was gonna cut it off.

And this took place about 10 or 11 at night, so I was very brave- - I told you, what time are you all sewing?

And then I get an email, what should I- - I sent her an email, she said, "It's too late, it's done."

- She's quite independent and she's very smart, so I don't have to worry about that.

- Okay- - But isn't this beautiful how this just looks on her, the changes, I mean, they're small but it just looks so clean, and it just looks so beautiful, but go ahead.

- Okay, the third thing was, of course being a wrap and being red, it didn't have a focal point, which I felt it needed badly because the color is all red, and the trim helped some, but it needed something else.

And so a focal point on this particular garment in my estimation, could only go onto the side, where the sides crossed.

And I put two buttons together and then stitched it, and originally I had black trim for the ties, but it was a distraction rather than a focal point, so I had to redo the trim into the red, and I left the red and the black button.

And basically that's it, I did shorten the sleeves on this because I found the fabric warm, and I wanted to wear my bracelet, and that's basically it.

- So let me say to you that, I don't think there's anything more fun than the journey of sewing.

- Absolutely.

- It really is fun.

However, keep in mind that, the first thing you wanna look at, and my mother used to always say this to me, she'd have a focal point down here and I'd say, "You know, mom, like, shouldn't it kind of go up here, shouldn't-" And she'd say, "No" She'd say, "This is exactly where I wanted it."

And I'd say, "Yeah, but it doesn't make you look as tall or as thin as it could."

And she says, "I wanna look shorter, and I wanna look fatter."

She didn't give me any room for negotiation at all, okay?

(laughs) So we certainly can dress any way we want, however, I do want you to be aware, that that beautiful contrast there, pulls your eye down as opposed to pulling it up.

She has enough beautiful stuff got on here, that's not that big of an issue, but I do want you to be aware of it, because what we could have done is, I think if that button wasn't even there, it would be more simple up in here, and then you could steal a necklace or something.

- I could, or- - Or put it there, and then- - A small scarf or something.

- Just leave the rest.

- So notice though that she planned ahead with the bracelet, I can't even steal the bracelet without her looking.

- No, no, no.

- Any other issues with the fabric or things like that?

- No, I did find that the stretch woven.

- Stretch woven.

- Stretch woven, it's sews beautifully, it washes beautifully.

It has great body and just enough stretch, I plan to use it again.

- I just wanna make sure that stretch goes around the body.

- Absolutely.

- When you're laying it out, make sure that stretch goes around.

- Because there is no stretch, the other way.

- There's always stretch in one direction.

So stretch woven, just to make sure you know when you're dealing with the warp, which is the thread that's laid down first, which is going vertical, and then you're laying down the weft, the weft is the stretch, the warp is what gives it strength and stability, and the weft is what gives it the stretch.

So you're only gonna get one way stretch when you do that, and you wanna make sure that one way stretch goes around you.

- Okay.

- And you can turn the fabric either direction just so you know.

- No ironing necessary.

- No.

- If you just hang it, just damp hang and that's it?

- What about sewing time, I'm curious how long it took you to sew?

- Oh, this took a little longer because of the trim, and because basically I had to cut the trim, and then glue it to the fabric because I tried sewing it, and of course it rumpled and rippled, that took the longest.

The actual dress in sewing time, probably took maybe an hour to an hour and a half.

- See, so now after we've talked to all these designers, and we know that it's the number of hours put into a garment that determine the end price, what would you sell it for?

- Oh, I'd be keeping this one.

For an hour and a half... - Remember all those designers talked about how it was the experience that helped them learn more and more, Lora you've been amazing.

- Well, it's been a progression, I'd say I was worth about $139.

(laughs) - Thank you very much.

- Oh, you're welcome.

- Once you have that base, and once you start looking at wrap dresses, what I really want you to see is that wrap dresses build the design in in other ways.

Even though this is gathered and twisted at the waist, it still has that wrap effect.

You still notice that it goes past center front, in order to get to the other side, just one side is the wrap and the other side is not.

So once you start laying the base of that little black dress, and then the wrap on top of it, what you'll do is you'll see all the fun little things that you can do with it, and when you look at the dress, you can start taking it apart piece by piece, to see all the options that you could do with it.

So once we fit that sheath and once we fit the wrap dress, really it'll give us such a base to do so much more.

We're gonna make sure there's no gaps in that wrap.

A piece of jewelry can be more than a decorative accessory, highly regarded jewelry designer, Julie Cohn, joins us next time to share her vision of storytelling, using natural materials.

We'll learn from her expertise, how to enhance your personal story through fashion, next time on "Fit 2 Stitch".

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by, Kai Scissors, Bennos Buttons, OC Sewing, Orange County, Vogue Fabrics, Pendleton, Imitation of Life, and Clutch Nails.

To order a four-DVD set of "Fit 2 Stitch Series 9", please visit our website at fit2stitch.com