Dress #56.2: Charles James cocktail dress in blue-grey Elephant and the skirt is constructed

and the skirt is constructed in a single piece that wraps around the hips and features three self-covered flat buttons at the back left

5 inches wide

front view

I’ve chosen a Nepalese Lokta paper for the black silk faille skirt

Dress #56.2: Charles James cocktail dress in blue-grey Elephant and the skirt is constructedThis hand stitched paper dress is based on a cocktail dress created by Charles James in 1949; the original, in blue grey silk, is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession 2009. 300. 200). My first version of this cocktail dress used a black paper patterned with gold; Ive since become much more obsessed with using paper that evokes the original fabric. This version used a Nepalese lokta paper with subtle shimmer. Charles James is considered by