These are not the trimmings I meant (French Gown c. 1780)

Now for a post about something I did actually make myself.

Zone Front French Gown c. 1780. Trimmed with floral garlands for Bal Di Carnivale.

In late 2013, the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild (GBACG) announced that in February it would host a Carnivale themed Venetian ball. I decided this was the excuse I needed to make a French gown that I planned years ago.

The gown is loosely based on this well-known, pink and frothy number house at the Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI):

French Gown c. 1780. Kyoto Costume Institute.

This gown is interesting because it has a zone front. It's the only sacque-back gown I'm aware of that has a zone front. The floral decorations are interesting as well, and are apparently painted silk.

The ribbon is wired, so to make it fit pulled the wire to gather it in strategic places.

I made my version out of a purple and gold striped damask, and used the pattern I had developed for the red french gown I made a few years ago. That saved loads of time. I don't remember the last time I had a dress go together so fast.

I got the stripes symmetrical, but didn't try to match the back of the neckline.

Yet I still ran out of time to  make and attached the trimmings, which were also supposed to be loosely based on the KCI gown, though embroidered instead of painted. A week before the event I decided that there was no way I was going to get the trims done (and still sleep and go to work). So, I trotted off to Michael's, the craft store. I bought four plastic floral garlands, several handfuls of plastic floral sprigs, and several spools of gold wired ribbon, and got creative.

The trimmings are plastic floral garlands and sprigs, creatively safety-pinned on.

Because 1) I was in a hurry, and 2) I wanted to be able to get these garlands off easily later, everything is attached with safety pins.

The bodice front closes with two hook sand bars.

The ribbon was safety-pinned also.

The original pattern is JP Ryan's, and I've deviated from the pattern's instructions by skipping the back lacing (I put in a big tuck) and using lacing strips.

The front laces under the stomacher, as according to the pattern.

I also wanted to be able to get into it mostly by myself, so the stomacher is tacked on on one side, and attaches with hooks and bars on the other side.

The stomacher is tacked to the bodice on one side, and attaches with hooks and bars on the other side.

Finally, I had wanted to make new sleeve ruffles, but...you know...ran out of time. So I put on my old faux-whitework sleeve ruffles.

My old faux-whitework sleeve ruffles finished the gown.

I will some day finish the trims I had planned, as well as the sleeve ruffles (I'm going to attempt machine whitework on mesh). I've already taken all the trims off, now just need to find the time to finish the embroidery and get it stitched on.

I also styled a new wig for this outfit, and will have to do a post on it later.

Here's a few pics of the gown in action.

1750 Court Gown Part 3: Taking It Off

In this post I'll take the gown off the dress form and show how it's put together. As before, you can find high res photos, and many more of them, at my website.

I used J.P. Ryan's pattern, and modified most of it. This wasn't because of any problem with the pattern, in fact, far from it. Patterns are drafted to fit someone, and because of my physical attributes, that someone isn't me. Moreover, I needed to change the back to work with the pattern in the fabric (I simply had to have symmetry) and the pattern was meant to go over J.P.'s pocket hoops, not a big pannier. I do love J.P.'s patterns: they're well researched and meticulously drafted, and I've used them to make now five garments with super-happy-happy results.

First, the stomacher comes off.

Underneath the stomacher is an under stomacher, which is what keeps the bodice on the body. This is part of J.P.'s pattern and I think it's great, because it makes the bodice very stable. Here also you can see pattern cheat #1: instead of stitching eyelets to lace it shut, I used securely attached strips of cotton tape. I learned this method from Jennifer at Festive Attyre years ago (and, indeed, used it on my facsimile of her Italian working class dress; you'll find her explanation on this page). And because I can't leave well enough alone, I decorated the blank space on the under stomacher with a fancy machine stitch (technically, not embroidery since it doesn't require my machine's embroidery arm).

And to make my life easier, I attached a tapestry needled to the lacing tape.

Here's the stomacher:

I wanted to try something different, so I cut out a section of the fabric featuring the birds, since I wanted to emphasize the "love birds" theme in the fabric. I painted just enough to fill the stomacher, using Neopaque silk paints from Dharma Trading. It was mostly like doing "paint by numbers", followed by some shading to give everything some dimension. I had some coverage problems with the yellow and orange, but all the other paints went on smashingly. I don't know the last time that I actually painted something (except for doll faces, which are quite different) so wasn't sure how this was going to come out, but in the end I can't complain (well, maybe a little, but I'll keep it to myself). The coloring of the birds are based on the yellow finch.

Painted silk is historically accurate (Hallie at Sign of the Golden Scissors has been talking about it, for instance, here). Whether there ever existed a painted stomacher, and the whole gown was not also made from painted silk, I don't know, and haven't made any effort to find out.

I wasn't sure how much fabric I would need to get over the pannier, petticoat, and petticoat, but it turned out pretty simple. The gown is two widths of the 60" wide fabric for the back, and one width, split in half, for the front. Front and back join along the side skirt with straight cuts (the pattern has one straight, and one diagonal cut, I assume so that the front pulls open in the expected V shape). The fabric that extends out from the waist then got stacked into fat pleats and tacked to the bodice lining, which you can (sort of) see here:

 Here's the interior of the bodice, where you can maybe see the tacking stitches for those pleats, and two lines of stitches that keep the side back of the bodice attached to the lining:

Here you can also see pattern cheat #2: the pattern calls for a set of ties along center back, so that you can expand or contract the bodice. I wanted to 1) not deal with ties and boning; 2) save time; and 3) my torso dimensions don't fluctuate much, which makes this a "nice to have." So, I just put in a big fat dart, and if I do really need to adjust I can let the dart out.

Around the hem and open front of the skirt I put a deep facing, using silk taffeta:

Here you can also see the gold thread that keeps the lace attached. I like facings, because they provide body in key places. The damask here has a lot of body, but the addition of a facing forces it to behave. Along the hem, the facing also helps defend the fancy fabric from dirt and snags.

The gown comes off, and here's the petticoat:

To make the petticoat I ditched the pattern completely. I took three widths of the fabric (which was somewhat more than enough to go over the under structure), seamed them into a tube, and then pin-fit it to the dress form, pulling up the sides to make the hem level. I tried to make the front very flat, but was having trouble getting the fabric to behave, so ended up with a wide box pleat at center front. The flounces along the hem go pretty far around because I anticipate wearing the gown "retroussée dans les poches" (meaning with the skirt pulled through the pocket slits) so that I can get the train mostly off the ground.

The sides I pleated to a strip of grosgrain, leaving an opening so that I can get to my pockets.

This method is more-or-less suggested by Jean Hunnisett in Period Costume for Stage and Screen: 1500-1800.

Here's something that I tried with this petticoat that I can't document, but that did help control the front and back halves while putting this on:

I put a couple of loops on the inside of the front waistband that I thread the ties through. On the back, the loops should have been on the outside, but I muffed up and put them on the inside. They're still usable, but a bit more of a hassle.

Lastly, this is what happens when ya' plum run out of time:

The petticoat's hem facing is just based on, and the ruching is held on with pins. Yeah, big mess.

Geeze, this ended up being a really long post. Sorry about that! Hopefully you didn't get bored halfway through. :)

1750 Court Gown, Part 2: The Gold Lace

The prominent trim on this gown is the gold lace.

As before, I've got higher res photos (and many more of them) on my website. Stop by here.

I made this lace using the embroidery attachment on my sewing machine. In machine embroidery parlance, this is called "freestanding lace," because it is embroidery that is not fixed to a fabric (hence, freestanding).

For thread I used Madeira FS Supertwist Gold 7. I used 50 weight because I wanted a fine, lightweight lace, but I started running short, so switched to 40 for the top and 50 for the bobbin.This heavier lace only made it onto the front of the petticoat and the very last repeat in the curving section you see above.

I must say, that the Madeira Supertwist was FANTASTIC. Through hours and hours (and hours) of stitching, it suffered very little breakage.As a freestanding lace it's a little stiff, but looks great.

There are three widths of lace on this dress:

Small lace along the top of the stomacher.

Medium lace along the open edge of the skirt.

Large lace along the skirt ruching.

The small and medium lace were digitized by Dainty Stitches, who I found at Secrets of Embroidery. To make the large lace, I took the medium lace pattern and added more scallops.

Test stitch-outs of the small and medium lace (on top of my
messy sewing notebook).

Test stitch-out of the large lace. I used machine sewing thread for
all these test stitch-outs.

What it looks like "in the hoop." The segments
get cut out and stitched together with a zig-zag
before they hit the water for soaking.

Pinning segments onto the sleeve flounces.
Because they needed to curve, I didn't connect
these segments beforehand.

Now, there is a problem with this lace: it's in the style of crochet lace.

Crochet lace wasn't developed until the 19th century.

OH WELL. I didn't have time to digitize lace from scratch, especially since I had never digitized lace before this. If I had had the time, I would have created some lovely punto in aria lace. Ultimately, only lace junkies and those who crochet a lot will notice. I used to crochet. To me, this is so obviously in the style of crochet. :(

And finally, just for giggles:

These are 5000 meter (5500 yard) spools.
40 weight on the left, 50 weight on the right.

After. Still have a lot of the 40, but the 50 is toast.

1750 Court Dress, Part 1

The dress and I are back in the studio, and it's time for what will be a nauseating amount of photos. These photos are low-res, and are not the entire batch for this session. For high-res photos, and many more of them:

Click this finely crafted link to the gallery on my website.

What you're looking at:

French gown, or robe à la française, or sack/saque gown, with stomacher and petticoat. I've attached the date 1750 to it because it lacks a waist seam, and because of the size of the pannier it goes over. It's meant to be suitable for being seen at court, say, in France (arguably the most "high maintenance" court at this time).

Pattern: for the gown I started with JP Ryan's pattern, and redraped the front to fit me, modified the back pleats to work with the pattern in the fabric, and extended the sides to fit over the pannier. The petticoat I draped and pleated into shape.

Fabric: Scalamandre "Love Birds" silk damask. I believe the color is "Georgian Red."

Trims: self fabric ruching, edged with a fancy machine stitch, in imitation of hand embroidery. Gold machine-made lace, in the style of crochet lace.

Stomacher: painted silk and self fabric ruching.

What next:

More photos, of course! I'll start taking the gown apart (visually, that is), and describing each element.

These photos also capture the gown as it looked on its first wearing. I'm calling this the first incarnation because, first, I didn't finish all the trims I had planned, and second, at this point I see things I want to change. More on both, soon.

Soiree of the Year, and Costume Preview...or Post-view...or...

Last night, the Greater Bay Area Customers Guild (GBACG, also on Facebook) hosted an "Evening at the Petit Trianon" at the Bellevue Club in Oakland, California. Visit our Flickr Pool for loads of photos (and keep visiting, photos will keep getting added). The costumes were fabulous. The venue was perfect. Accolades are inadequate. Of course, what makes GBACG events so much fun for me, is the company. The Guild is filled with great people.

Here is what I wore at the party: a French gown, or robe à la française, or sack/saque back gown (please don't call it a Watteau or I may smack you) c. 1750,  and some monumental hair.

This outfit has preoccupied me more-or-less-and-more since March. I'll blog it to pieces in the next few weeks to describe what you're looking at now, and will continue to blog about it as I *ahem* finish it.