How to sew a dress in the Greek style yourself. How to sew a dress in the Greek style with and without a pattern

An incredibly feminine, spectacular and very summer knitted dress. In addition to the fact that it is made of white cotton jersey, decorated with very stylish elements on the belt and straps, the dress is stylized to resemble the outfits of Greek goddesses. This is a very fashionable trend now, so why don’t we sew something similar?

Before you start modeling a dress pattern, you need to build according to your own measurements. This is very easy to do - use our step-by-step construction instructions

Dress pattern

Rice. 1. Modeling the front half of the dress

Rice. 2. Modeling the back half of the dress

How to model a dress pattern

Transfer the front half of the dress pattern completely onto tracing paper (see Fig. 1). Draw red modeling lines as shown in the dress pattern drawing. Cut off the front of the dress at the waist and cut the top of the pattern along the red modeling lines, spreading them apart.

Cut the lower part of the front (dress skirt) along the dart line and push it apart into folds (see Fig. 1).

The back of the dress should be completely redone and modeled as shown in Fig. 2.

This dress is made of elastic material, so there is no need to make a zipper. The strap of the dress is cut separately, 8 cm wide (4 cm in finished form) and 16-18 cm long (the length of the strap must be adjusted directly when trying on the dress).

The first associations that arise when hearing the word “Greece” are beauty, harmony, proportion, antique clothing. Images of Greek goddesses, their beautiful silhouettes, draped in fabric from head to toe. Light, airy, flowing - only such dresses could be worn by these mythical women. Greek women's dresses are the most symmetrical, proportional, balanced and organized, in a word, everything in them is subject to the basic laws of architecture.

The ancient Greeks turned out to be not only brilliant builders, but also skillful creators of the most feminine dress in the history of fashion. Dresses in this style will always be fashionable, because classics are eternal.

Today, the Greek style of clothing cannot be called extravagant; it is rather unusual, sculptural and at the same time nobly simple. Multi-layered fabrics, gathered with a brooch - and now the simplest Greek dress is ready. Drapery, all kinds of folds, thin translucent fabrics in several layers - the style allows all this. Moreover, the layering of the hem gives the image femininity, charm and fragility.

Ancient Greece lived according to the law of symmetry. It was observed in architecture, in the construction of thought, in the creation of costume. But a modern dress can also be asymmetrical. Playing with contrasts is its significant advantage. An emphatically high waist, a straight silhouette, a long straight cut, a hem strewn with pleating and folds and at the same time a bare shoulder - this is what attracts many women. Playing on the contrasts of symmetry and asymmetry, Elie Saab and Valentino include a classic one-shoulder Greek-style dress in their collections, thereby causing a stunning effect.

Another design solution - criss-cross drapery in the chest area, high waist, flowing fabrics, vertical folds, shiny details, immediately conjures up the artistic image of Thais of Athens. Chiffon dresses in the style of a Greek tunic are offered by Kenzo’s, House of Chanel. Marc Jacobs recommends wearing a tunic with genuine leather sandals. She decorates her Malandrino and Monique Lhuillier dresses with jewels. Elegant and sparkling models of dresses in the Greek style from the designer Marchesa, thick and flowing from Yves Saint Laurent. Long, fluffy styles of dresses require high heels, open shoulders and arms require large bracelets.

Wedding dresses in Greek style

Wedding dresses deserve special attention. Captivating, delightful and enchanting are the key words that characterize them. It is enough to look at the collections of wedding dresses of such leading designers as Vera Wang, Badgley Mischka, Alberta Ferretti to appreciate the Greek style, flowing in everything: reliefs, lines and draperies. You will be pleasantly surprised by the incredible lightness of the dress; you may feel that it is weightless. The color combination of white and gold is happy and luxurious. A fitted silhouette or flowing drapery from the chest line - it will be a pleasure to choose a dress style to suit your taste, because there is no more beautiful dress for a woman than a wedding dress!

For the hardworking - a bright light burns through life, for the lazy - a dim candle

Greek dress without a pattern. 3 ways to sew it yourself

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Your aim– these are light flowing fabrics (muslin, satin, silk, jersey, fine knitwear, velvet). The fabric should be fluid, thin, easy to fit into soft folds and not wrinkle too much.

(By the way, please note that among flowing fabrics, you can find those that do not fray when cut, then you will not need to process the edges after sewing the dress.) The length of the cut must be at least 3 meters.

We will create a dress in the Greek style ourselves. And no patterns! Just a flight of fancy and a mirror. And every woman necessarily has both.

Don't have a sewing machine? So you don’t really need it to create a Greek dress.

Have you ever sewn anything? And a Greek dress does not need to be “sewn” in the generally accepted sense of the word (with pattern drawings, darts and tufts).

First method: “Wrap up and tie yourself up”

Here is a visual diagram:

Two decorative pins on the shoulders and tie with a ribbon at the waist or under the bust.

Of course, this simplified version of the dress will fly open in any wind. Therefore, this particular model would be appropriate at a beach resort over a swimsuit.

And in order to make a full-fledged Greek dress from this, you just need to sew the flaps of the dress along its right side from bottom to top, so that the body does not show through. The result is an elegant outfit in the Greek style.

This model is good because, although it does not fit the body at all, it nevertheless emphasizes the beauty of its curves, thanks to the fluidity of the fabric, flowing seductively over the body. And according to this modeling method, you can get completely different dresses, depending on the color and quality of fabric you use to create them.

For example: ivory-colored satin, a string of freshwater pearls around the wrist, a discreet but exquisite brooch on the shoulder made of the same pearls, hair scattered over the shoulders - and you get the image of a young Aphrodite emerging from the foam of the sea, and your wardrobe is replenished with a fashionable Greek daytime dress .

Or the same model but: black silk, a brooch on the shoulder and a gold-colored bracelet, smoky eye makeup - and this is the evening look of a formidable goddess.

Second method: draping on the body

The great French fashion designer Madame Grès created her dresses in the Greek style, draping them by hand on the model's body. Her way of creating an antique dress has become classic, and her clients have included Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich and Barbra Streisand.

As the ancient Greeks used to say: “It’s not the gods who burn the pots,” let’s try ourselves in the role of a fashion designer.

Here is a picture of a Greek dress made from a single piece of fabric.

High-fashion? Yes, high, but not so high that we couldn’t reach it.

What do you need: fabric is a little longer than 2 times your height from heels to shoulders (if you want a floor-length dress). Decorative braid or ribbon of such length that it is enough to wrap around yourself under the chest and at the waist twice.

Let's begin. We spread the fabric on the floor, found the middle of it and drew a line with chalk. This line will lie on your shoulders.

Now you need to make a hole in the center for the head - draw a perpendicular line (about 15 cm to start with, so that the head fits through) and cut it with scissors.

We stuck our head through the hole, and now we need to decide to what level we will deepen the neckline. ( The dress from the photo has a waist-deep neckline. But you can also stop it under the chest, tie it there with a ribbon, and then you don’t have to wrap another ribbon around the waist, let the fabric flow freely down, starting to fall straight from the ribbon under the chest. And this will be a slightly different model of the Greek dress, less revealing). But let's continue...

So, they put it on the head and marked the desired level of neckline depth on the fabric with chalk. We took it off, spread it on the floor, drew a line to our mark and used scissors to cut the cutout to the end. We gathered the fabric along the shoulder line with pins and then proceed as shown in the figure.

They tied a ribbon under the chest, but not on top of the fabric, but underneath it, on the body. We take pins and, placing the fabric in folds, pin them to the ribbon, draping first one breast, then the other.

We do about the same with the tape at the waist.

Now that we already see the image of our future Greek dress, and we are satisfied with the way the fabric lay, we can thread a needle and, taking out one pin at a time, sew our folds to the ribbon with large stitches (or you can sew everything first, and then remove the pins already). The stitches can be made oblique and curved, anyway we will sew another ribbon or braid on top, and we will sew it on carefully.

So, we made the front part of the dress in the Greek style.

At the back you can do the same thing as at the front - with a cutout and two ribbons. Or show your imagination and play with drapery. Using the method of pinning and crab tucks for hair, find the very location of the folds when the fabric flows in the most interesting way for you, emphasizing your advantages and hiding your flaws.

The pictures show 3 ways to drape the back of the dress. Third way "swing" is achieved by gathering the fabric up (the left and right edges of the fabric are gathered, and the middle sags freely, forming these most beautiful “swings”) Accordingly, for the third method, the fabric for the back hem needs 1-2 meters more.

But when playing with the fabric and imagining, keep in mind that the dress must provide free entry and exit, that is, somewhere it must be fastened and unfastened. It is best to sew one elegant button on the side, at the ends of the ribbons on the front of the dress, and a loop on the ends of the ribbons on the back of the dress. Thus, it turns out that the dress above the waist does not have side seams, but is fastened with buttons (or Velcro, or decorative fasteners - to your taste).

The third method: drapery on the “fabric”

Let me explain what “sticky” is. Imagine that you have a short dress that fits your figure, that is, almost clingy. But you don’t wear it and won’t wear it, because you once spilled bleach on it, and the stain cannot be removed. And if you still haven’t thrown it out, then rejoice, you don’t have to sew a special lining - this dress will serve as the ideal basis for creating your new magnificent dress in the Greek style. That is, it will be this very “sticky material”.

You put on the wrap, take flowing fabric to match, throw it over your shoulder (or cut a hole for the head, as in the previous method), form folds and pin them to the wrap. Then you sew them on first with a rough thread using simple coarse stitches, take out the pins, try them on again and, if everything suits you, sew them on by hand using neat hidden stitches.

Pull out the rough thread, trim off the excess fabric, if necessary, make a seam. As a basis for drapery, you can use not only a sheath dress, but also a tight-fitting T-shirt or bra. The main thing is that the drapery completely hides the base, and the base itself is the same color as the drapery fabric.

As you can see, a dress in the Greek style can be made literally “with your bare hands.” Without any drawings or mathematical calculations. Guided solely by intuition and a sense of beauty.

Go ahead, grab some fabric and try and create! And you will definitely succeed!

As the ancient Greeks said: “To learn to play the harp, you need to play the harp.”

And if you want to know more, you are welcome to follow the link. You will learn how the unsurpassed Alix Gre and Madeleine Vionnet created their Greek dresses.

You can make yourself an exclusive outfit with your own hands. The main thing in this matter is a successful dress pattern. In the Greek style, the created outfit will allow you to stand out from the crowd and attract attention to your person. Of course, in this case it is worth considering the hairstyle, jewelry, and shoe model.

Greek style dress styles

There are a lot of options for beautiful clothes today. It just makes my eyes wide open! And many models are available for making with your own hands, as long as you have a successful dress pattern in the Greek style at hand. "Burda" is a wonderful magazine. It provides readers with not only a variety of styles of outfits, but also beautifully designed patterns for cutting.

Although in many cases, some kind of exclusive dress pattern in the Greek style is not required at all. Often, an outfit is made by draping a piece of fabric over the figure and securing the garment with pretty brooches, artificial flowers, pins, or a few stitches.

Other styles are based on conventional models using embroidery on the chest, along the bottom of the dress, and on the sleeve cuffs, made in the Greek style.

Dress created using drapery

You can make such an outfit in just a few minutes. Not only that, to sew such a dress in the Greek style with your own hands, you don’t need a pattern as such.

To work, take a piece of fabric across. The middle is held near one side. Both ends lead to the shoulder opposite the draped side. You can pin the fabric directly on the shoulder, or you can sew a narrow strap in the right place.

Now, with a needle with a thread inserted into it, the fabric is grabbed on the side so that it does not fall apart. It is recommended to make small, beautiful folds during baiting. The seam is made from the middle of the thigh to the armpit. After this preparatory work, the area caught on the live thread can be sewn on a machine.

It is worth understanding that the seam will be obvious, so you should carefully select the color of the threads. In some cases, you can limit yourself to hand stitching. Again, neatness and evenness of the stitching will play a huge role here.

As you can see, to make a luxurious outfit, sometimes you don’t need a complex pattern at all. Floor-length Greek-style dresses can be made in a few minutes, if you have a well-draped material on hand.

Greek dress without seams

Some people may not believe that you can sew a luxurious outfit without threads and needles. And the dress pattern itself in the Greek style will be made with minimal effort. That is, a piece of fabric is simply cut off from a roll!

Of course, there are some things you'll have to take care of. These are accessories for clothing, such as brooches for pinning shoulder joints and a wide belt.

So, let's start creating a masterpiece!

• A well-draped, ironed fabric is laid out on the floor or large table so that the direction of the grain thread goes transversely.
• The side cut lines are folded towards the middle of the rectangle.
• The upper folded corners are moved slightly apart to form a neckline.
• These places are fixed with hairpins (brooches) or thread.
• Now the dress is put on the figure with the open part forward. The fabric is beautifully laid out in folds and a belt is put on that will hold them in the desired condition.

If you wrap the robe a little, you will get a rather modest model of a Greek dress. And if part of the body is left open between the fabric, and the belt is fastened almost at the waist, then the model will be extremely extravagant. This style is suitable for ladies with an ideal figure and high breasts.

Greek dress with front seam

You can design an outfit in a similar way by stitching the connection of the side panels folded to the middle of the segment. In this case, you also do not need a specially designed pattern for your figure. Dresses in the Greek style have such a wonderful feature: the fabric and the ability to beautifully distribute the folds of the drapery are important.

The instructions for making the dress are quite simple.

1. The fabric is folded in half crosswise face to face.
2. The seam is not completely stitched. You need to leave a gap equal to the depth of the cutout. By the way, the dress can be worn either with a slit in the front or in the back.
3. The resulting “sleeve” is laid out on the table so that the seam runs exactly in the middle of the product, with the embroidered edges facing up.
4. Pull the edges of the cut apart slightly so that a neckline is formed.
5. The corners of the free ends are fastened to the edge of the material located underneath. You can stitch the edges a little, then the dress will have hangers. And if you fasten it pointwise (with a thread or a brooch), then the shoulders will be open.
6. Having treated the neckline so that it does not get wet, you can put on the dress, beautifully laying out the folds and tying the belt.

Round neck dress

This summer outfit is perfect for both young slender girls and ladies with luxurious shapes. You will need a fairly simple pattern for sewing. Greek style dresses for plus size people fit well if the belt is located slightly below the waist. The side seams can be machine stitched, and the neckline and armholes can be finished with bias tape. In some cases, there is a reason to process the armholes with a simple hem of the cut.

Making such patterns for summer dresses in the Greek style on your own will not be difficult even for a novice seamstress. The length of the outfit can be any: a short tunic looks just as interesting as a long evening robe.

Long evening dress in Greek style

For ladies with a luxurious figure, we can recommend a dress with a “bag”, gathered at the top with a drawstring. Thin straps can be placed on the shoulders from front to back. Sometimes the dressmaker passes one strap through the back along the neck and fastens its ends in front. A sort of clamp is formed. To make such a dress in the Greek style with your own hands, you will need a very simple pattern, in the form of a rectangle, where the width of the segment will be the length of the robe, and its length will be the girth of the figure.

So you shouldn’t feel complex about your weak sewing and cutting skills. You need to bravely pick up scissors and a needle and start creating a masterpiece that will allow you to become unique, beautiful and attractive.

Let's start with the fact that you don't need to sew a Greek dress yourself. This is just a play on words for those who are unaware that a Greek style dress does not require a needle and thread.
There are three ways to create a Greek dress. But, unfortunately, you cannot buy any of the models in a ready-made dress store. Therefore, we will make the outfit of the goddess Aphrodite ourselves.

Yes, yes, a DIY Greek dress does not require much effort. You will need a piece of fabric of at least 3 meters, a large mirror and your imagination. If with the second and third, I’m sure you definitely don’t have any problems: we have enough of both.

What about the fabric? Choose lightweight, flowing muslin, silk, satin, jersey, velvet or fine knit. The main thing is to get soft folds that do not wrinkle too much. And the last wish for fabric for a Greek outfit - choose one that will not crumble when cut.
That's all the preparatory work. Well, let's go?!

Method 1 - “Wrap yourself in fabric and tie yourself” model
As you can see from the name itself, everything is simple here: the cut is secured on the shoulders with decorative pins and tied with ribbons under the chest and/or at the waist.
Of course, such a model will easily expose the figure in gusts of wind, which makes it appropriate on the beach when it is dressed over a swimsuit.
To make a more modest Greek robe, you need to sew the side edge to hide the body from prying eyes. This dress will easily hug your figure with its soft folds, emphasizing its curves and beauty.
If you add an exquisite pearl bracelet or bracelet to a light-colored dress, you will get the outfit of a goddess of beauty. And if you use black silk in your outfit and gold jewelry, then the goddess will take on an evening look.

Method 2 – “Drapery” model
It was introduced into fashion by the French fashion designer Madame Grès, who created outfits for Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Barbra Streisand and Jacqueline Kennedy.
For a floor-length dress we will need: a piece of fabric in two lengths from heels to shoulders plus seam allowances, as well as ribbon or braid to wrap itself twice under the chest and at the waist.

So, the process started:
- according to the drawing, look for the middle of the fabric and make a hole for the head about 15 cm.
- mark the depth of the neckline directly on the figure: if you want a sexy dress, then cut to the waist, and for a more conservative option, stop under the bust (in both cases, the models will look like completely different dresses).
- remove the fabric and bring the cutout to the desired depth using scissors.
- gather the fabric on the shoulders using pins.
- we tie the ribbon on the body at chest level, arrange the folds of the fabric according to the figure and secure them with pins to the ribbon, repeat the same with the ribbon on the belt.
- sew the fabric folds to the ribbon with a needle and thread (the stitches may be sloppy, since we will still cover them on top with a second ribbon).
- selecting beautiful folds according to the figure, thus securing the front and back panels of the dress.
- in order for the Greek dress you created to fit well and be easy to put on and take off, you need to make fasteners on ribbons: sew a button on the end of the front ribbon, and make a loop at the end of the back ribbon.

So, our model does not have side seams below the waist. Three methods of attaching the tape are shown in the figure.

Method 3 – model “Drapery on a finished dress”
This option provides that the body is already wearing a dress that strictly fits the figure (a slinky dress). It could be just an old straight dress, with or without a stain, but you haven't worn it for a long time. If you don’t have such a wrap, you will have to sew it specially.
The fabric is draped over the finished dress over the head, as in the previous model, or over the shoulder, and the desired folds are formed. Next, we work as before: we cut off the folds and attach them to the binding with pins and then with stitches. After fitting, carefully sew the folds to the main dress and make seams in the right places.
Instead of a base for the third model of the Greek outfit, you can also use a bra or a tight-fitting tank top. The main thing is that the top drapery completely hides it, and the color of the base and drapery matches.
That's all. As you can see, there is nothing complicated about a DIY Greek dress. All you need is intuition and a creative approach to beauty. Forward!
I just want to complement the fabric, I need to choose the softest and easiest to drape, ideally natural silk.