Wildflowers & Whimsy: Fashion & Flair Friday ~ Anthro's Bold Boutonniere Dress Knockoff

Yay! It's Friday! You know what that means! Another great knockoff! Today Kristina is going to show you how to make your own version of Anthro's Bold Boutonniere dress!

Hello, everyone! This is Kristina from over at the Kristina J blog. I was so excited to share this project with you for Fashion and Flair Friday! My mother taught me to sew and slope my own patterns when I was ten years old and being able to recreate a designer dress for a fraction of the cost is, hands down, the best by-product of knowing how to sew.

For this feature, I constructed a version of the Bold Boutonniere Dress from Anthropologie. I sloped my own pattern, but if you're more comfortable using a store-bought pattern, McCalls #M5804 would be a really close choice. This is a tutorial on how to imitate the rose detailing on the bodice.

I was great with child when Anthropologie released this dress, and have never actually seen the dress in person, so imitating this dress was all a huge guessing game. Since I missed out on the original, I always planned to make myself a version, but never came across the right fabric for the skirt until a couple months ago when I stumbled upon this great ticking fabric in the Home Decor section of my Jo-Ann's. Finally! A Bold Boutonniere dress all my own. I chose a silk dupoini fabric for my bodice and used the same material for the rose detailing.

I used a straight piece of cloth because I thought cutting this on the bias might be more fluffy than I wanted and when gathered just a bit, it ended up being the perfect amount of dimension.

I didn't finish off the edge of the folded strip and it wasn't a problem because when I attached it to the dress the finishing stitches prevented it from unraveling.