Peggy's 2nd Season Promo dress

1 years ago today, Agent Carter Season 2 aired. This dress actually showed up at the end of the first episode of Season 1, but they used it for the Promo of Season 2, which is what I always associate it with. 

I wasn't originally going to do this dress yet, but then my roomie (the lovely DZ cosplay- go follow her!) for Starfury: The Ultimates decided to do the Dottie outfit from this promo shot. I mean, it would have been rude not to match! 


When I bought fabric for this dress, I was debating things with myself. I feel like this would be incredibly comfortable and flattering if done in jersey as a completely casual and enjoyable dress. So I bought blue jersey. But at the same time I wasn't sure that I'd be happy if the dress was so casual. Not that it wouldn't be lovely, but I wasn't sure that I wanted it to look like that. I was also eyeing up Peggy's high waisted blue trousers and so I bought a luxury poly crepe that would do for them plus some extra. 

In the end, because I knew we would want to try to recreate the Dottie/Peggy promo shot, I decided to make out of the poly blend first and I could always go back and make it out of the jersey at the later time. I honestly still might, as I completely love this dress.

I will say, that if you are looking to do this, and want it to look more accurate, the luxury poly crepe is probably not the best choice. It looks beautiful, feels beautiful, has a wonderful light sheen without being shiney. However, when trying to recreate the ruching on the front of the bust, I think a less thick fabric would work better. What I used wants to bounce back from the gathering and doesn't create the very tight lines without significant bulk being added. In the end I went with looser tucks, which still evokes it and works with the fabric I had. Gigi has said that this dress was made of rayon crepe, but whatever you use, I'd suggest that if you want tighter ruching use a much thinner fabric over a lining. 

As it happened, I already had a matching luxury poly crepe in red. The actual promo piece is coral IMO, but I didn't own any, couldn't find any, and have never actually cared for orange. While coral is more tolerable to me, I went ahead with the red as I felt it still worked with Peggy's palette and goes back to evoke the red, white and blue.


As it was, I constructed this as a lined garment, making the lining as my mockup as usual. It helped a lot as I ended up having to drape the chest ruching. I made a simple body block based off of a prior pattern that I made last year for the top. I modified it so that the darts on the side were parallel to the floor, and left in the front and back darts on the lining so it fit my upper body well. 

The skirt pattern I actually created from a skirt I own and love. It is a quarter or half circle skirt. Essentially, the front is one quarter of a circle, as is the back. This was a definite departure from the original as she clearly has the classic three-paneled skirt construction used in a lot of her dresses, but I have never shied away from a little volume, and just love the way that skirt swishes. 

I attached it to the bodice and decided it was a little more poofy than I wanted as it wasn't laying flat across my abdomen, so I shaved off some on either side and called it grand. I knew I couldn't do too much more on the mockup than that, so started in on the main event and began creating the banding.


I pretty much had to guess on the dimensions I wanted for the "ribbon" effect of the waistband. I know it was a Cumberland affair that clasped after the dress was on, but I wanted it to be a simpler zip-up-the-back dress so I decided to build in the banding. 

I basically made strips of the layered colors (red/blue/red). The red ended up being XXX inches wide, while the blue was slightly larger. I backed them on a piece of sew in stabilizer so that they were less likely to wrinkle up. I stitched along the seam allowance on either side so that I could fold them accurately and press a crease in the seam allowance.

For the ruching, I put the whole thing on the dress form, and ripped a piece of fabric that was almost the length of the bodice but the entire width of the fabric as I wasn't sure how much I needed for the rushing. Then I just pinned up the excess in the centre neck and centre bust (effectively from bust point to bust point) and laid it across to fit it to the rest of it. I actually hand-stitched the ruching so it would stay while I fit the darts in and cut to fit. Then I attached the banding across below the bust making it so that it fit from waist up.


I cut out back pieces that exactly matched the ones I had used for the lining, and sewed the darts in. Then I laid strips of the banding down, matching the waistline. With the pre-creased seam allowance, I could figure out where to pin it on both side, taking care to ensure the colour changes would match up in the back seam line. 

I stitched it together, sewed on the back skirt panels, and then put in an invisible zip, being extra cautious about those colour changes. It didn't end up perfect, but attempt number 2 was close enough I was happy. 

Because I wasn't going to attach the lining at the neck, I attached the lining right then to the zip. It made it so much simpler to try it on, and made sure the lining wasn't going to interfere with the zip working. It also made the draping of the chest so much easier.


The sleeves were hand drafted, but any poofy pattern would do. Those got attached and hemmed so the bottom of the sleeves stopped at the top of the banding like Peggy's.

The last thing I felt I needed was the neckline. I made a small piece of bias for the neckline out of the red. But before I put that down, I had to lay down some flat blue in order to get the neckline looking like Peggy's. The original does not have the ruching starting at the red, there is a blue band there. 


So, because I was insane, I did that. It would have been much easier to do it without this, but I felt it bulked out the neckline more than I wanted. I stitched in the ditch to attach the red with time running out before I was due to fly to Starfury and called it done. 

Shoes, sunglasses, and hat have all been repurposed from other Carter looks. Peggy never wears it with a hat, but having worn the outfit at a couple of cons, I find that more people recognise me if I wear the hat.

In the end, I wish I hadn't made the banding separate on the front and back. Getting them to line up on the sides with the slant I have in my waist was a nightmare and it means that the bands seem to go up a bit more than the down I feel is there in Peggy's. However, I don't think it would look quite as good as I do otherwise as a straight up and down band wouldn't fit me as nicely. 

Photo by Ricardo Silva
This is definitely my favourite Peggy dress to wear now, though. I love it, and while I wasn't gone on it in Season 1, I'm glad they brought it back for the promo shots or I might not have done it. 

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