The Crooked Hem

I’ll be honest, I don’t like wearing wrap dresses. I always feel like I’m about 5 seconds away from a wardrobe malfunction. As a person with curves, the neckline can be especially challenging to get just right — not too loose, not too tight, not too plunging. So I’ve avoided this style for the most part, even though I love how it looks. But the Homme wrap dress by Elbe Textiles piqued my interest when it was released recently, so I decided to give wraps another try.

Design and fit

The Homme wrap dress comes in either a dress or a jumpsuit view, up to a 60.2 inch (153 cm) hip. Both views feature an elastic waistband, a darted bodice, and a set-in sleeve. Homme also comes with two options for cup sizes: either a B-cup or a C/D cup.

What intrigued me about this design is that it’s a hybrid; the top obviously has a wrap closure while the bottom skirt/pants have an elastic waistband. The two tie pieces cross through a keyhole in the front bodice, rather than a slit in the side seam like most wrap tops.

I was curious whether removing the wrap element from the skirt would make the dress more wearable for me. I have too many memories of wearing wrap skirts in high school, and being paranoid that I was going to flash someone every time I sat down or experienced a strong gust of wind. By removing the wrap element from the skirt, Homme resolves at least the bottom half of my wrap dress anxieties.

This design seems like it’s begging for a comparison with everyone’s favorite wrap pattern, the Paper Theory Zadie jumpsuit. While I haven’t made the jumpsuit, I have made a Zadie wrap top, and there are some important differences.

Bust ease: The two patterns are graded very differently. Below, I’m showing how bust ease changes over each size. The Zadie bodice (in blue) is designed with 5.5 inches of ease in the chest for most sizes, but less ease in the largest two. Homme is designed with a broader range of bust ease, 3.5 inches in the smaller sizes and up to 6.8 inches in the larger ones. So depending on where you fall on the size chart, these two bodices may feel very different:

My measurements are: high bust 37 inches, bust 39.5 inches, waist 32 inches. I’m a size 16 in Zadie and size E (C/D cup) in Homme. So that means I fall on a part of the chart that has a large difference between the two patterns:

Here is what the two wrap bodices look like on me:

In my size, I have 5.5 inches of bust ease in Zadie (left, above) and 3.5 inches in Homme (right). I haven’t made any fit adjustments to either pattern. Zadie’s fit is looser and quite forgiving. Homme fits me pretty well with no adjustments, although I do have some excess length in the front armscye, which is why I have a little excess fabric folding around my front shoulder.

Sleeves: One of the reasons why the Homme bodice can be more fitted is because of the difference in the sleeve. Homme has a set-in sleeve while Zadie has a grown-on sleeve. With a set-in sleeve, the armscye and sleeve cap can be contoured to fit the shoulder and armpit closely, whereas a grown-on sleeve will naturally have more ease, especially in the hollow between the bust and shoulder. The two pattern pieces obviously look very different:

The difference in sleeve style impacts how fitted the bodice can be through the shoulder and chest. In Zadie, I have a full range of motion because I have more ease all around my shoulder and through the chest. In Homme, my arm feels slightly more restricted when I raise it.

So the sleeve choice affects the fit in the bodice, and it also affects one more important difference between these two patterns.

Neckline: In my size, Zadie has more ease through the bodice, which means there will be more ease in the neckline. So Zadie’s wider V-neck has more slack along the bound neckline edge. While the shape is pretty, it’s one of the reasons that I don’t wear this top often, because it doesn’t feel very secure.

The Homme bodice is more fitted in my size, with less ease in the shoulders and chest, so the neckline feels firmer and more stable. The V shape is also not as wide on the Homme bodice, which makes me feel less exposed.

Of course, there are a number of adjustments one can make to tweak a neckline and tighten up the Zadie, and I have tried several. Even with some adjusting and a well-placed neckline snap for modesty (undone for comparison, above), there is a limit to what the design can bear.

Zadie is designed to be less fitted around the shoulder and armpit, which means the trade off is always going to be a looser neckline for this wrap top. Homme can be more fitted because of the sleeve choice, so the neckline will feel more secure. But with Homme the trade off is arm movement; a more fitted sleeve with less ease means a little less range of motion.

Fabric and Construction

I chose a lightweight cotton from Merchant and Mills for my Homme wrap dress. Just like the fit, the fabric choice poses a trade off, as well.

This pattern was intended for a range of fabrics, many of them with high drape and swish factor (tencel, rayon, silk). Plain weave cotton isn’t as drapey and floaty as a rayon or even a linen, however I am willing to sacrifice a little drape in the skirt for more stability in the bodice.

The natural surface texture of cotton tends to be a little bit grippy; it wants to stick to itself. For a wrap bodice, this is a very good thing. My bodice ties feel very secure in cotton, and I can arrange the fabric in the wrap and not worry about it sliding around or loosening throughout the day.

Obviously, I have some trust issues when it comes to wrap bodices. I value fabric stability over everything else, so cotton is an easy choice for me. But this pattern would be beautiful in a silk or a linen, too, if you are a fan of wrap garments.

The instructions for this dress are straightforward and easy to follow, the whole dress came together for me in a few hours. If you are using a fabric with an obvious right and wrong side, I’d suggest cutting double the pieces for the ties so you can line them.

My one gripe with the construction is that the dress view does not include pockets. They would be easy enough to add, and you could even use the pocket pieces and instructions from the jumpsuit view. I don’t know why pockets were omitted from the dress, perhaps they added unwanted bulk to the skirt? The dress and jumpsuit views use the same elastic and waistband construction, so it’s not clear to me why pockets would work for one view but not the other.

Final Thoughts

Has the Homme wrap dress changed my mind about wrap garments? Maybe. I wore it to dinner last last weekend and was pleasantly surprised with how stable the neckline felt and how little adjusting it needed throughout the evening. The fitted shoulder and armscye, while a bit more restrictive to lifting my arms over my head when compared to Zadie, means that the whole bodice feels more secure when worn, which I like.

Obviously I have some trust issues with wrap garments that you, dear reader, might not share. For me, this dress will probably be a special piece that I wear to a dinner date or a concert, but probably not to an event that’s more active (say, to a wedding with a dance floor). With some fit tweaks in the front armscye, I can probably increase the range of motion on this dress without sacrificing too much neckline stability, but I’m also ok with not every garment in my wardrobe being all-purpose. So this design has potential for me, and maybe it will for you, too.