Red Satin Cashmerette Mansfield Cocktail Dress

It’s holiday season and I’m excited to share with you my latest make — the Cashmerette Mansfield Dress! This party dress is the latest release for the Cashmerette Club which you’ll receive if you’re a monthly member in December or one of the All-Access members.

Disclaimer: I’m a Cashmerette Collaborator and received a year of All Access membership in exchange for sewing this pattern and providing photos, but all opinions are my own.

This pattern has several options and I kinda took a little of each and then put my own spin on it. It mashes with the Cashmerette Upton and I pulled in some of the bodice pieces in that one as well. And, then I added a giant bow on the back. So let me tell you a bit more about all that.

I measure at a size 4 C/D bust, 6 waist and 8 hips and that’s what I made with no sizing adjustments. I used the shiny side of a polyester satin shantung from MyTextileFabric.com that was a potential fabric that I didn’t end up using for my Minnie Mouse dress. The organza (also from MyTextileFabric.com) for the overskirt and the bodice lining (from Joann’s) are also leftover from Minnie. I still have so much red fabric from that project so it was nice to make a dent in it with this dress!

So what did I do differently from the main pattern? First off, because I was using satin, I wanted to do princess seams on the front. I can never seem to get darts to look right in satin. Fortunately the Upton dress uses princess seams.

I really wanted the sweetheart neckline of the Mansfield so I transferred the neckline to the Upton bodice pieces. And then, since the Upton has a waistband, I lengthened the Upton pieces by the width of the waistband. I don’t remember exactly but I think it was around 1-2″. Then I narrowed the shoulders slightly to match the shoulder of the Mansfield.

I only used the Upton for the front of the bodice. The darts are narrow enough on the back that I could use the original Mansfield ones and I could make them look good. Also, I was using the underdress bodice pieces for this, not the overdress. I didn’t actually make an overdress bodice — just the skirt.

That was pretty much all I did for the bodice. The princess seams are in the same places as the darts, so after sewing it together, I could just follow the normal Mansfield instructions.

The skirt of the underdress was a 6 at the waist graded to 8 at the hips. If I make this again, I might do a size 6 in the hips as well. I have a lot of ease in the skirt, but it does allow for comfortable movement. I’ll decide after I wear it to a dinner party and have to sit down in it.

I shortened the skirt by 4 inches because I’m a shorty. There is a 1″ hem on it.

Not much else to say about the underdress. I actually like it on myself a lot more than I thought I would. I would definitely do a different fabric next time. The satin, even after pressing, shows too many imperfections. I’ve since read some ways around them, but it’s just so fidgety. So we’ll see . . .

One other thing I’ll mention about the bodice is that I love that they remind you to trim a little off the neckline of the lining so that when you stitch the lining to outer fabric and understitch, you don’t have extra fabric in the lining. It’s representative of the quality I’ve found in the Cashmerette patterns I’ve made.

My inspiration for this dress was those classic peplum dresses from the 80’s. What can I say? I love that fashion era. The original Mansfield overskirt is midi or full length. I decided to a do a high low hem.

The way I did this was as follows. First I cut out the normal sized midi length Mansfield pieces. I sewed them all together like I was going to make the normal skirt. I did French seams on all the seams since it was organza and they might be visible.

Then I laid it out on my cutting table with the front center on the left and the back center on the right. I pinned the front and back together and marked roughly where I wanted to cut. It was basically 5″ off the center back and 24″ off the center front and then a nice curve between the two. Then I went for it.

I wasn’t really worried about screwing up because it was fast to cut the pieces and I have a ton of organza so if I had messed up, I could have just started over. But it worked great! I finished the hem of the overskirt with a rolled hem on my serger. It was a low profile fast way to hem that kept the floaty feeling of the fabric.

Next up was the waistband of the overskirt. The one that comes with the Mansfield is about 1″ wide and gently curves with the hips. Great if you’re using it as a separate skirt, but, again, I was going for more of that 80’s look so I wanted something wider, more cumberbund-like. I cut 2 rectangles that were 4 inches (3 inches + 2 1/2 inch seam allowances) and interfaced one. Then I followed the standard instructions to insert the overskirt with gathering stitches. Final step was some closures and I used 2 pants hook and bar closures.

But the last last step was the bow. I mostly freehanded this out of the leftover satin that I had. For the bow itself, I did a large self lined rectangle with interfacing on half. I cut a tiny self lined tube for the center and hand stitched it closed around the big bow part.

For the tails, I looked at the Swanton blouse for inspiration on the shape, but then just went for it. I cut out 4 identical pieces by cutting 4 layers at once so that I could ensure they were identical. Then I used the pieces as templates to cut out interfacing (I used SF101) for one-side of each tail. Sew right sides together, and turn them inside out. I finished off the top with a quick serge and then hand stitched to the back of the bow center.

I intentionally did not permanently attach the bow to the overskirt or the dress because it’s much more versatile this way. I use a safety pin. It makes it easier to wash and I can wear the bow with the overskirt or the dress alone. I liked both looks and couldn’t decide so figured, why limit myself?