Let's draft the pattern of this cocktail dress. It has a vintage silhouette with fitted bodice with waist cut and tulip skirt.
The bodice has an interesting dart manipulation, while the skirt has volume given by overlapped pleats.
You can sew it in any medium weight, crisp hand fabric, as silk twill, taffeta, heavy satin...and we suggest to add interlining to the bodice and a full lining to the whole dress.
To draft the pattern, start from a basic block with darts and zero wearing ease.
You can learn our method for drafting perfectly made to measure basic blocks (contoured ones, and the ones with wearing ease) and for fitting them in our basic blocks course/module 1. You will learn in depth also how to manipulate darts, add volumes and a lot of pattern transformations that will take your pattern making skills to a higher level.
Trace a copy of back and front and adjust the length to the ankle.
Then draw the new neckline: start from armpit, then on center back lower 2 to 4cm more, on center front raise 7cm minimum from bust height for the neckline. Then draw it with a smooth line.
Focus on front: cut away the part above new neckline, then draw the underbust line and make the waist dart 3cm wide all the way up to the underbust.
Still working on front: square down from dart apex to the hemline, then draw the following slash lines:
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