Revisiting Vionnet’s Golden Skirt

I decided to make the “Golden Skirt” again. This time in silk/rayon velvet instead of silk charmeuse. Mama Mia! It is not an easy fabric to manage. Thank goodness I know a few couture techniques for working with slippery fabrics.

My first mistake in dealing with silk velvet, is that I stored it improperly. I received the fabric on the bolt from the seller and decided to unroll it. I then attempted to re-roll it as neatly as I could and placed it in a bonus room above our garage. The problem with this location is the room is not always climate controlled. The summer heat and fluctuating temperatures in the room resulted in me now having a bolt of crushed velvet. It is very hard to remove all these creases. I plan to try and to use the fabric for another project. I will keep you posted on how that goes.

To move forward with my Vionnet skirt, I ordered more silk velvet and was lucky enough to find a remnant of a matching cutout velvet at Mendel Goldberg’s so that I could make the top to complete the ensemble similar to the original. I used the pattern from the Japanese pattern book “Vionnet” for the top.

The top was pretty easy to construct. I am now working on the skirt and thought it would be a good time to revisit the technical aspects of this skirt and why it is so special.

I wrote several blog posts about this skirt that were the basis for an article for Threads Magazine, published in their Summer 2021 (#214) issue. Here is a recap of the previous posts. You can draft the skirt yourself without a pattern based on your own measurements. You don’t need to print a pattern. It’s all straight lines and circles. If you need some insight on actually constructing the skirt, you can refer to this post.

This Madeleine Vionnet skirt (pattern #18) is described in Betty Kirke’s book, “Madeleine Vionnet”. The skirt is circular in nature, but it is not a single circle with a cutout. Instead, it is composed of multiple geometric shapes. I named it the “Golden Skirt” because of its unique spiral yoke and Vionnet’s likely inspiration – the golden ratio. I have shared some interesting details of this skirt which truly shows Vionnet’s technical mastery of the bias. It also shows her mastery of providing a flattering fit for the wearer. Most circle skirts are not flattering on the body, but this one is flattering because of where true bias falls – at the center front of the abdomen and across the buttocks. You can read my more detailed article on this skirt here.

Mastering distortion and ensuring an even balanced hem

This is where I am in making the skirt – forcing the distortion/stretch of the yoke. I have basted the muslin pieces of the lower part of skirt to the velvet yoke, so that the weight of the skirt and gravity will force the distortion. Here is an image of the silk charmeuse skirt I made. You can clearly see the distortion of the yoke after letting it hang-out for awhile.

Once the yoke has stretched, I will remark the seam line and begin the actual construction of the skirt. Keep reading to further understand the purpose of doing this. It’s technical but interesting.

When making a typical full circle skirt, one cuts the apex of a quadrant of a circle in order to make a hole for the waist. This apex is based on an equidistant radius that relates to the waist circumference measurement. This cutout (a circle) is concave. The response of the fabric along this curved edge is not the same at all points. Some areas stretch more than other areas, with the most stretch occurring along the true bias and no stretch occurring on grain along the warp yarns, and maybe slight stretch occurring along the grain of the weft yarns.

It is the stretching along the concave curve of the waistline that directly affects what happens at the convex curve of the hemline. The weight of the fabric and gravity pull on the curved waistline and stretch it to varying degrees, causing the hem to distort. This is why some dressmakers will let a circular skirt hang on a dress form for a couple of days before trueing the hem and sewing it permanently. But, eventually the hem will dip over time. 

Vionnet had a more precise way of preventing this unbalanced hem on circular/quadrant based bias designs. Betty Kirke noted that in some of Vionnet’s garments with waist seams, one side of the waistline was cut a little deeper. 

“To control the ripples at the hemline, one must control the amount of fabric stretching into and collapsing under each point of the waistline above. The fabric must be cut and placed along the waistline according to its stretchability at each point. The warp grain side will be cut deeper than the weft side, and the bias, with the most ability to stretch, must be restrained from doing too much. At the true bias, I stretch the fabric horizontally and force some of the fabric into the area of less stretchability.

Theoretically, each ripple will then have the same number of yarns, the same weight, and the same degree of stretching. The even hemline should persist.”

In a circular shape there are varying degrees of bias not just true bias (45 degrees), which results in various degrees of stretching and distortion. In Vionnet’s skirt, only the stretching that occurs on the yoke needs to be managed, which is easier to control than a full circle skirt with more surface area.  Below is an illustration of all the pattern pieces for the skirt (pattern 18). See Betty Kirke’s book, Madeleine Vionnet for better details.

The skirt is composed of a waistband (cut on the bias), a front hip yoke that is 3 quadrants of a circle, a back hip yoke that is 2 quadrants of a circle, a barrel shaped center panel with a circular cutout, and two side panels that have a semi-circle shape. When the front and back yokes are sewn together they form a spiral. The center front and center back panel of the skirt falls on the straight of grain and gets sewn to the spiral yoke, so there is minimal distortion at the hem at these locations (if the spiral yoke is stretched first). And, the side panels of the skirt which get sewn to the center panel(s) do not have a concave cutout. They are sewn to the center panel, straight of grain to straight of grain. The finished hem, will still need to be trued after construction of the skirt, but it should not distort anymore over time if you stretched the yoke first. The result is a perfectly balanced hem of which Vionnet would approve.

This image depicts the difference between Madeleine Vionnet’s “golden” skirt and a typical circle skirt.

MAKE THE SKIRT YOURSELF

In order to draft the pattern pieces, it is necessary to calculate the radii of several different sized circles. Here are the calculations for drafting the pattern pieces. I apologize for my rough drawings.

Take Measurements

• Take your waist measurement. I used 26 inches.
• Take your waist to floor length measurement, or your preferred skirt length plus a little extra for hem seam allowance. I used 41 inches total.
• Determine preferred length of hip yoke. I used 6.25 inches.
• Gather supplies. You will need a large square sheet of pattern tracing or drafting paper, or several pieces taped together that is at least the length and width of the waist to floor measurement, and another two to three pieces of paper to draft the front and back hip yokes and waistband. You will also need a ruler, measuring tape and pencil.
• You are now ready to begin calculations and draft the pattern pieces.

Back Yoke

Calculations:

Determining radius of Circle B (Back waist of yoke). The circumference of Circle B is the waist measurement, which is 26 for me. Plug your measurements (in red) into the formula to determine the correct radius for you.

B = 2πr 

26 = (6.283)r 

26/6.283 = r 

4 = r

Determining radius of circumference of back yoke hem (D)

r = 4 + length of yoke 

r = 4 + 6.25 

r = 10.25

Back Yoke Drafting instructions:

1. Draw a vertical line and then a horizontal line perpendicular to it
2. Measure out to the right from the center of these intersected lines the distance of the radius for the back yoke (4 inches).
3. Measure out to the left from the center point the distance of the radius (4 inches).
4. Keep plotting this distance from the center point until you have a semi-circle.
5. Connect the dots. Label this line B.
6. From this new curved line, plot the distance from you waist to your hip line (6.25 inches). Connect the dots of this curved line. Label it D.
7. Label E and F (side seams of yoke) as shown.
8. Mark grain line direction as shown (parallel to CB)
9. Add seam allowances at all the edges. I used one inch.

Front yoke

The front yoke is three quadrants of circle and therefore the radius for cutting out the waist for the front is different than the back.

Calculations:

Determining circumference of Circle C (Front yoke waist): Front + Back = Circumf. of Circle B (waist measurement)

3/4*C + 1/2*B = 26 

3/4*C +13 = 26 

3/4*C = 13 

C = 13*4/3 C = 17.33Determining radius of Circle C (Front yoke waist). Circumference of Circle C is 17.33.

C = 2πr

17.33 = (6.283)r 

2.75 = r

Determining radius of circumference of front yoke hem (G):

r = 2.75 + length of yoke 

r = 2.75 + 6.25 

r = 9

Front Yoke Drafting instructions:

1. Draw a vertical line and then a horizontal line perpendicular to it.
2. Measure out to the right from the center of these intersected lines the distance of the radius for the back yoke (2.75 inches)
3. Measure out to the left from the center point the distance of the radius (2.75 inches)
4. Measure down from the center point the distance of the radius (2.75).
5. Keep plotting this distance from the center point until you have a three quadrants of a circle.
6. Connect the dots. Label this line C.
7. From this new curved line, plot the distance from you waist to your hip line (6.25 inches). Connect the dots of this curved line. Label it G.
8. Label E and F (side seams of yoke) as shown.
9. Mark grain line direction (parallel to side seam E).
10. Add seam allowances at all the edges. I used one inch.

Waistband

Draft waistband by drawing a rectangle 3.5 inches wide and the length of your waist measurement. Add seam allowance. The waistband will be cut on the true bias. The reason the waistband is on the bias is because you are attaching it to a spiral shape. A straight of grain waistband would not work as well. The finished waistband will be folded in half and shaped to conform to the spiral shaped yoke.

Barrel and Side Panels

Note, for the pattern pieces above, they represent a full pattern piece with seam allowance. For the Barrel and Side Panels below, you are only drafting one quadrant (one-forth) of the circular skirt and without seam allowances. You can either make full pattern pieces with paper, or from muslin, which I suggest. You will need to add seam allowances and fold the muslin before cutting. If you do a muslin first, then you can use the muslin as your pattern pieces and therefore cut your fashion fabric in a single layer.

Calculations:

Determining circular cut-out for barrel pattern piece (or just measure yoke hem D and G with measuring tape).

D = 1/2*2πr  

D = 1/2*(6.283)(10.25)  

D = 32.2  

G = 3/4*2πr 

G = 3/4*(6.283)(9) 

G = 42.41 

D + G = 32.2 +42.41 

D + G = 75

Determining radius for circle cut-out of barrel. Use measurement or calculation above.

r = 75/2π 

r = 75/6.283 

r = 12

Barrel and Side Panel Drafting instructions:

1. Draw a vertical line and then a horizontal line perpendicular to it,or use a square piece of paper.
2. Measure out to the right from the center of these intersected lines the distance of the radius of the waist circumference (4 inches) plus the desired length of the skirt, waist to floor (41 inches), for a total 45 inches.
3. Measure down from the center point the 45 inches
4. Keep plotting this distance from the center point until you have one quadrant of a circle.
5. Connect the dots. Label it hem.
6. From the center point, plot the radius for the circular cut-out (12 inches). Connect the dots of this curved line. Label it D&G.Add seam allowance to D&G (one inch)
7. Draw a perpendicular line from D&G to the hem (highlighted in light green). Cut the pattern along this line to create the pattern pieces for the barrel and side panels. The cut line represents the seam line where these pieces will be joined.
8. Add seam allowance to the side panel and seam allowance to the barrel along this cut edge (one inch).
9. Draw the grainline direction line for the pattern pieces (parallel to CF and CB)