With Valentine’s day right around the corner, some of us might be preparing amorous letters for our significant others… but love can take all shapes sizes and forms… So instead, I prepared a love note to my newest favorite material: Ponte de Roma.
Besides beautifully rolling off the tongue and stirring up visions of the Italian countryside, Ponte de Roma is the material I’ve been looking for my whole life (well more honestly the past few years).
As a dressmaking enthusiast, an issue I’ve often faced is finding the right knit material for my designs. For example, Jersey is a great fabric with beautiful drape, but it’s too thin for the dresses I make. I’m more of a cocktail dress kinda gal who has been using almost exclusively wovens.
When stretched too tightly, Jersey begins to reveal details about the wearers’ undergarments that were not meant to be made public knowledge. It’s a material excellent for tops or loose summery dresses, but not so many form-fitting numbers.
Then there is scuba—another great knit fabric, but still was not quite what I had been looking for. On a positive note it doesn’t wrinkle and offers a nice amount of coverage, BUT it’s far more suitable for swim and activewear.
I wanted stretch, but I also wanted luxury. And for the longest time, the knits I came across just did not have all the qualities I was looking for. Defeated, I gave up hope for years and stuck exclusively to thick wovens, and gave up on my desire to have a little “give” in my life.
(“give” meaning elasticity in less sewing-slang terms).
Then suddenly, Ponte de Roma walked into my life.
A new revelation— a dressmaking game changer. It does not wrinkle, has a beautiful luxurious matte quality, and the thickness is perfection (meaning no underwear shall be seen, AND you may not even need spandex body shapers)!
So there you have it, Ponte de Roma, the fabric star of this feathery little black dress I made— also known as the new fabric love of my life.
Click here to grab the very same Black Ponte de Roma I used to create this dress.
Click here to grab the very same Black Ponte de Roma I used to create this dress.
Hope I have convinced even just a few of you to give this magnificent magic material a try, and if you do, please let me know in the comments below! Happy sewing & Happy Valentines Day ya’ll!
❤ With love— Stylish Seamstress
P.S.: If you would like to make a dress of this length I recommend buying 4 yards total. Grab 2 yards for the exterior, and 2 more yards if you would like to use it as the lining as I did!
P.S.S.: This dress design is a reinterpreted version of YSL feather romper that made its way down their SS 2018 runways. Click the link to see the inspiration source.
