More Summer Dresses.... the Sheath is Here to Stay

A little snoop shopping yesterday and what was evident is that the economy has scaled back the fine designer floor space, or is it that we are living more casually now?

I ran to the Carolina Herrera section and found an entire selection of sheath dresses.  As with anything else once you have the fit down for the first sheath, you can pretty much set this up assembly line and finish a wardrobe off in a week.  They were all variations on the sheath, most of them made out of Italian cotton twill with spandex, 4 waist darts (2 front, 2 back), lined, center back zipper, some with higher necklines some a little lower and all sleeveless.

Once you have the pattern perfected, you can play with color blocking and piping, this is especially good if you don't have enough fabric, or if you could only afford 1 yard of that expensive Italian twill.

If you've ever seen coordinating prints and have wondered, what can I make with this one that is cashmere, and this other one that is cotton.  The scarf is a cashmere blend, and the dress is cotton spandex

Then we have this one that is the same silhouette but in polyester.

Now this is not my lifestyle now, although it wouldn't hurt to have one sheath dress in the closet for an emergency.

This won't stop me from making a few for summer, but they will be slightly shorter to wear with flats.  The other nice thing about this silhouette is that since they are skimming the body, they look good under jackets and sweaters.