Back in October 2024, I posted about the inspiration and construction details of a freshly completed 1794 dress (you can view that past post here). At the time, I promised myself that I would figure out how to get my hair to look vaguely 1790s and find a fun opportunity to wear the dress and get photos!
Every few months after finishing the dress, I found the inspiration needed for a trial to figure out how to get my small-diameter-curly hair to look remotely like the billowing-larger-scale curls found in 1790s fashion plates. Of course, one could wear a wig… but I really enjoy using my own hair for these things! It’s a fun challenge, I think.
My first trial attempt was unsuccessful in the overall look, but I learned that curling iron curls didn’t look so far off as to be implausible. My second trial attempt taught me that the 1790s organza cap I made (finished even earlier, in 2023, and which you can read all about here, in a past post) that was intended for this outfit looked silly when perched directly on my head. It really, really needed volume so it appeared to be floating on my hair. Enter, a giant bun form. (The same bun form, in fact, that makes up the biggest part of my hair support for giant 1770s hair in this past post.)
See? The cap isn’t really on my head at all. It’s just floating on my hair. Aside from curling all of my hair, the only other part of creating this hairstyle was to artfully pin the curls up to make them elegantly descend from the cap on every side.
With this dress, I wore the foundations of the 1790s ensemble I’ve been putting together for the last few years. This included my entirely hand sewn c. 1785 Stays of Success and 1790s Petticoat & Bum Pad. Also finished in 2023 and 2024, this was the first real outing for the stays, which you can read all about in this past post, and for the petticoat and bum pad, which you can read all about in this past post.
The whole ensembles is super comfortable! The stays are, in fact, a success! And the layers, with their generously gathered skirts, are full of movement. The ruffles add a bit of fun. And the front closures on the petticoat and dress are definitely easy to use!
The only difficulty of wearing this dress came from the hem that just brushes the ground. Wearing it outside meant that it collected twigs, pine needs, and leaves that I was constantly removing. Not to mention the fact that the layers attracted multiple stinging bee-like creatures to get stuck between them! Ack! Luckily, kind people around me helped me separate the layers enough to let the winged creatures free, and not a single person was stung! Whew!
Perhaps this ensemble is better suited to a marble-floored walkway, but… it was breezy, and cool, and elegant to wear outside (when one ignored the bits of nature stuck in the hem ruffle!).
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 