Vintage Diolen dress advice

[TaraIndia]

Hi again!

I recently purchased this 70s Diolen sundress but unfortunately it isn't warm enough to wear it yet. It's very light and confortable to wear and is made of 100% polyester.
However, upon close inspection after tryimg it on I noticed the seams around the bottom of the dress were pretty and not to the same standard as the others, making me think it might have been modified and shortened at some stage?
I was also wondering if anyone knew anything about Diolen as a brand itself, as I can find a lot of dresses of the brand, but not much information about their clothing. I think it is a German brand around in the 60s and 70s...?

TIA

 

[TaraIndia]

This is the dress itself, worn.

 

[Midge]

Pretty dress! It might either have been shortened and the hem resewn by hand, or the original seam unravelled and they redid it by hand. Diolen is not actually a maker's name, but the brand name of a polyester fabric that was produced by a German company. What I could find out is that it was marketed since the late 1950s at least. I have old catalogs and sewing magazines like Burda from the 60s and 70s - Diolen everywhere .

 

[TaraIndia]

Pretty dress! It might either have been shortened and the hem resewn by hand, or the original seam unravelled and they redid it by hand. Diolen is not actually a maker's name, but the brand name of a polyester fabric that was produced by a German company. What I could find out is that it was marketed since the late 1950s at least. I have old catalogs and sewing magazines like Burda from the 60s and 70s - Diolen everywhere .

Thank you! I thought so, it is good because it fits in well with the 70s revival at the moment but being better made than a lot of those clothes haha! Oh ok, that makes sense. I had to reinforce it in some areas because as you can see some of it is thin and clear (?) I don't know if that is because the thread has perished? Oh I see, that was all I was able to find online but I didn't know if was just the material or it was a clothing company that changed fields, so that's interesting to know. Most of the clothing I could find online was labeled as "Diolen Loft", do you know what the difference is? That's interesting, it must of been a pretty popular material then! I'll try to find some listings like that online.

 

[Midge]

No idea about Diolen Loft... maybe it was variant. I'll try and see if I can find anything. I find that the threads often get thin and then rip. I've had more than one item like your dress where I had to resew the seams. Yes it was very popular - inexpensive, easy to care for, easy to make into clothes... sewing magazines also advertised polyester fabrics like Diolen a lot.