1920s party dress - Design

My work christmas party this year has a 1920s theme, and I haven't a thing to wear! Unfortunately I find the 1920s pretty uninspiring, with the exception of the girly, frilly afternoon dresses like the lucille dress I shared here. But no one would recognise that as 20s - I need something a little more like the iconic flapper dress.

I've had this dress on my bridesmaids dress inspiration board for a while, and I think it could be perfect for this occasion. The layered ruffles on the skirt combine with the straight bodice front give the feeling of a straight up and down 1920s dress, but its seamed into the fitted back so I'm hoping it won't completely disguise my figure (which I rather like)
Of course, I'm going to have to add sleeves, so I'm going to try a raglan style sleeve with lots of volume to echo the floatiness of the skirt. I think I will use up the left over fabric from the dark green bridesmaids dresses for this dress - hopefully I have enough!

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Version 1 - My first attempt at a pattern for this dress (and my first attempt at a raglan sleeve). Its not a bad start but there's a lot of things need changing - lets start with an extra 1.5" in length on the bodice, dropping the front neckline by 2.5" and adding some flare to the sleeves to make them like the design!
Please excuse the quality of the pictures, my hubby took them for me and I didn't realise till afterward the setting on the camera was wrong.

Version 2 - the alterations from version 1 went great, so I went ahead and attempted to add the overlay. I kinda don't want to show you these pictures cos it turned out HIDEOUS! But I guess you can learn from my mistakes!
I added a lot of fabric to the front piece - probably 8 slash and spread alterations per side, adding at least an inch at each. I gathered it to fit the neckline at the top. The result is a shapeless sack! I used slash and spread then gathered to fit the waist on the skirt too, and this was even worse than shapeless - instead the gathers stuck out right over my bum, yuck!
Oh, I should probably add that in order to add flare to the sleeve I ended up cutting it in two pieces, a front and a back. It still looks a little sticky-out in the pictures, but I think this is just due to the stiffness of the fabric I'm using for my muslin, in the chiffon version it should be fine.

Version 3 -It took me two more attempts to get the skirt right. I first tried pinning small pleats instead of gathers. This stuck out less, but still didn't have the pretty drapiness I was looking for. Then I tried redrafting the piece to add to the hemline but add nothing to the waistline - basicly a quarter circle with a smaller quarter circle removed for the waist. We have a winner! This is exactly how it looked in my head - I'm not sure why I didn't do it like this to start with, I think because I studied the pictures of my inspiration dress and noticed that it has tucks at the top of the skirt.
I tried out the four layer - doesn't it look pretty?!

The front I still haven't figured out. The first picture here is just pinning the excess at the sides, the second picture I started again, still didn't like it and tried pinning it a different way. I just can't figure out how they managed to make it drape and cling at the same time! This one I'm going to sleep on, try a few different things and hopefully it will fall into place. I may also start work on the actual dress, as I have a feeling the blue/grey contrast and the stiffness of the sleeves are adding to the problem, so if I have a base thats all the right colour to pin onto I may be happier with it. Worst case scenario, I guess I could leave the front drape off entirely, but I hate to admit defeat!
Thats all for now, watch this space!