I’m very pleased with my finished 1940 Schiaparelli Inspired Dress! The relatively simple style is set off by the pink and green sequined appliqué on the front of the dress.
This post is going to be all about wearing the finished dress. There is a separate detailed post telling all about how I made it that you can read here.
This dress is dramatic, yet simple, and completely different from anything else I have. And, it lends itself to elaborate and large hair which always amuses me.
I chose to do victory rolls, which I’ve posted about doing with my curly hair type in the past. (Not all rolls are technically victory rolls, but if they make a V there is a good argument for calling them by this name. In this case, I’m arguing that the dip between my two rolls makes a V and that’s why I’m calling them victory rolls. You can read lots more about the history of this hairstyle here, on the Bobby Pin Blog.)
The particular roll pattern and shape I chose to do was mainly inspired by this. My hair has enough volume to sustain the rolls on its own, but I cheated a bit on the teasing and stuffed the larger roll with small hair rat to help maintain the height and shape.
I’m very pleased with how the rolls turned out. They were dramatic, just like the dress and they made me super tall looking in combination with my trusty American Duchess black Seabury shoes and the columnar dress.
The V shaped rolls of hair complemented the V shaped sequins on the front of the dress AND the V shape of the back bodice with its V shaped pleats. There are all sorts of V’s in this outfit!
And, not only did I get to wear a fabulous, formal dress with large and fun hair, I was able to have a great time at Club Drosselmeyer with friends while wearing both!
(If you’re in the New England area and you haven’t heard of Club Drosselmeyer before, I suggest you check it out! I’ve been performing at and/or attending for years. It’s really special and fantastic for all sorts of people and interests. Personally, I really enjoy the live Christmas swing music, puzzles, and fabulous clothes, but there are also interactive actors, special performances, an open dance floor, and more!)
I finally open my rereleased new copy of Patterns of Fashion 2 (Pof2) last summer and had great fun looking through all of the previously included garments (from the original edition) as well as the newly included ones. I remember seeing one dress (picture below), in particular, and thinking that it would be fun to recreate it, but that the beading seemed like it would be quite a challenge!
1940 Evening Dress designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. The Victoria and Albert Museum. T.48-1965
A few months later, I was at Joann Fabrics and saw a fabulous magenta and green sequined net poking out of a shelf. I pulled it out and immediately thought that the colors were very me. But did I have a use for it? Not really… Except… What if I used that fabric to recreate the beaded idea on that dress from PofF2??? Schiaparelli’s designs often made use of magenta pink as a Surrealist inspired color, so it didn’t seem too far fetched for me to include that color in my version of the dress.
So, I bought some. ¼ of a yard, to be exact. Not too much, but enough to be able to pick and choose different parts of the flowers to create a pattern similar to my inspiration. Below is a photo of the inspiration fabric: magenta and green sequins on black net.
Not too long after that, I decided that instead of wearing my updated 1933 Dramatic Evening Dress to a December event, I would instead make a new one–the 1940 Schiaparelli dress!
The first step after my decision was to find black fabric. The original is silk crepe, but I wanted to keep the cost down a bit more than what silk would allow for. I ordered a few swatches of rayon crepe and also went to stores to look at other options. I’d almost decided on one when I came across another random fabric at Joann that stood out to me. I debated for awhile, but decided the Black Shimmer Twill was more interesting than plain black crepe (the shimmer twill is visible in the above photo underneath the sequined net).
The next step was to size up the pattern in PofF2 and adjust it to be not tiny. I am definitely not the measurements of the original! I did those things and made a mockup:
The dress skirt worked, but I wasn’t happy with what the sleeves were doing.
The neckline needed some work to fit comfortably.
I changed the grainline of the back piece. On the original, the back bodices are cut on the bias, but I decided that they would lay better if I cut them on the straight of grain.
Then, another mockup. I made a few more changes and finally it was time for the real fabric!
Cutting out the pieces was pretty easy. There actually aren’t too many of them, especially because the facings are cleverly cut on with the front and back bodice pieces. The pieces are: back skirt, back bodice, front bodice/skirts, and sleeves.
Below is a photo of the finished garment showing the clever front facings and the shimmery quality of the black base fabric I chose. (The photo also shows the fun back element of this dress: three v-shaped pleats that meet at the center.)
I sewed up all of the seams I could (so that was the center front seam, the sleeves, and the back waist seams) while still keeping the front flat, so that I could replicate, or at least imitate, the floral V-shaped beading on the original.
The next big step was using the sequined fabric to create a design similar in shape to the beading on the original. I cut out individual flowers and vines, arranging them on my assembled front pieces and pinning them in place until I was happy with the layout. Below, a photo of my cut out flowers, leaves, and vines while I was deciding on the layout.
Every piece had some net left around the edge so that I could flip them under and appliqué stitch them on. Below is an in-progress photo showing the top right flowers sewn on and some pieces pinned out of the way while I sewed bits that overlapped.
I get great joy out of taking tiny stitches, so I found it fun to catch every sequin as I went around all of the edges of all of the flowers! Here is a view of what all of those stitches look like on the inside of the dress! I didn’t think ahead to put anything to help stabilize the fabric on the inside… I wonder if it would have been less comfortable to wear if I had. Thankfully, the shimmer twill holds its own pretty well and doesn’t show puckers on the outside!
Eventually, all of my sequined bits were sewn in place. And then it was time to finish assembling the dress! The machine sewn seam allowances are all left raw on the inside.
And the top back pieces and back skirt have a fun period way of attaching to each other, which is with a top stitched seam (shown in the photo below). This is pretty common on bias cut dresses I have seen. I understand that this helps to stabilize the seam and is easier to match and line up than it would be to put right sides together in the usual method.
For closures, there is an exposed zipper (gifted to me) on the proper left side of the dress. This method and style was taken directly from the original dress information in PofF2. Below is a photo of the zipper, which is hand stitched into place.
The sleeves and skirt hem are stitched by hand, also following information in PofF2. Here’s a closeup of the sleeve. It is shaped with gathers at the top and two darts at the bottom. The hem is slip stitched into place by hand.
The only other thing that this dress needed was shoulder pads. I don’t think the original has them, as the shoulders look very sloped to me, but they were needed to make the dress sit properly on my body (and they add a very 1940s square shouldered look!).
Conveniently, I had a pair of shoulder pads in my stash that worked well. They were, however, light colored and I thought it would be nice if they matched my dress better, so I covered them with scraps of the dress fabric before tacking them in.
Below is a photo of my covered shoulder pads followed by a photo of the shoulder pads sewn in place on the gown, with bra strap keeps added as well.
And that’s it for now! This post is long enough, so pictures of the full ensemble will be in another post!
Historically clothed events continue to be somewhat sparse on my calendar, but I have photographic evidence of having gathered with friends last summer to partake in a Regency themed picnic. We were rained out of the original date and the alternate date was very hot, so we decided to mostly stay indoors. But we did go outside for a few fun documentation-of-our-gathering photos.
Did I mention it was hot? I was kind of melting. But I did really enjoy getting my 1815 Tree Gown out of the closet and giving it a wear. This continues to be one of my favorite early 19th century dresses! I still love the patterning, which creates a comfortable and elegantly shaped dress, as well as the lightweight block print cotton fabric. At least I had a cool fabric to wear in the heat!
Made in 2013, this dress has held up to 11 years of wear very well; however, I did notice that the forearms are very tight these days… so tight that they don’t let the armsceye seams sit where they should, causing the shoulders to constantly be pulling down my arm! And sadly, even with the 1/4″ French seams I originally made, they don’t have enough circumference to be let out.
On the bright side, though, I keep everything and I have scraps of this fabric in my stash. So for now, the forearms have been seam ripped and the dress is, metaphorically in the pile of things-that-need-alterations, awaiting my action of actually digging out the fabric scraps so that I can adjust the fit (it’s metaphorical because it’s actually hanging in the closet not in a pile!). This will assuredly become a When-The-Dress-No-Longer-Fits post… someday!
Just as with my post about the 2022 Greater Boston Vintage Society Newport Weekend, I’m posting about an event from last summer in the middle of winter. Sometimes it takes awhile to get to posting! Well, as before, late is better than never.
This year the weather was not as cooperative as in the past. It was raining on Saturday, the only full day of the event. Nevertheless, we made the best of it, choosing to still picnic outside, but in the covered areas of the porch.
It was a bit cooler than summer usually is, also due to the rain, so we added hot tea to our picnic spread. Yum!
Who doesn’t carry around a teapot in a picnic basket?
There was a break in the rain long enough for a few outfit photos. For Saturday I chose to wear my 1928 Egyptomania Inspired Dress and American Duchess/Royal Vintage Ginger shoes. The pop of color was nice on the rainy day.
For the Saturday evening ball, I wore my 1927 Blush Sparkle Evening Gown and black American Duchess Seaburies. It’s always neat to wear these shoes in Newport — they are designed based on shoes in the collection of the Newport Historical Society!
On Sunday, I decided to go to a behind-the-scenes tour of The Elms. As with all of the Newport mansions, this one has a grand facade and all sorts of interesting (and expensive!) details to learn about.
For example, the rounded area of greenery (below) actually conceals a sloping driveway to the basement and servants’ entrance. This is where deliveries were dropped off, as well. With the greenery growing on a lattice above this area the family could carry on without needing to see the servants or delivery people come and go.
The servants had very nice quarters on the top floor of the house. They also had access to roof space that ran around the entire house — but of course this was concealed by a parapet. Just as with the servants’ entrance, the family wouldn’t want to see the servants taking leisure time on the roof.
For modern tours, there is a platform that lifts you above the level of the parapet so you can see the view of the grounds and harbor. It’s quite lovely!
Back at the entrance, I was very amused by the shaped trees. They reminded me of mushrooms!
So instead of the usual outfit photos, I chose to take some highlighting the trees and pretending to be a mushroom! The weather had completely changed from the rain the day before! It was warm, and I chose to wear my 1953 Dot Dress with comfy Crocs flats.
In addition to the servants’ area in the basement and on the upper floor, we also toured the boiler room in the house. It’s massive, with multiple boilers! Well, I guess it is a huge house!
Along the lines of the concealed delivery entrance I already shared, this house also has a tunnel that runs from a side street to the boiler room in order to move coal without the family seeing. This is the entrance to the tunnel in the boiler room. Look at the floor! They had ways to turn the carts around and everything!
Finally, after lots of walking around the house and up and down stairs, I finished the trip with a picnic lunch by the water in a new-to-me area in Benton Point State Park. It was lovely, breezy, and the geologic formations in the rocks are beautiful.
And that’s it! After that it was time to head home to await another future adventure.
Time just keeps flying! It feels like 2023 started with a bang and the momentum hardly let up. All of a sudden it’s time to look back on this year’s accomplishments and start looking ahead to next year. Crazy!
I participated in my 11th year of the Historical Sew Monthly. This year I completed 5 of the 12 challenges. That’s three more challenges than last year! It’s been wonderful to have a little bit more time to sew.
Also, in May the blog hit 500,000 all time views! Wow!
Event Recap
I attended 1 ball (as part of a weekend event), 3 other events (picnic, croquet, outings, etc.), 1 dance performance, and participated in 1 weekend event (that included dancing, games, teas, picnics, winter activities, and grand house tours).
To Do Lists
I kept last year’s Definitely To Do list quite short, so that I could feel accomplished when completing it. And success! I completed both of the things on that last (The Stays of Fail/Success and updating my 1933 Dramatic Evening Gown).
I didn’t fully complete any of the items on the Maybe list from last year, but I did make substantial progress on two of the four items. In fact, they’re almost done! A new 1790s petticoat and dress… and they just need hems! I was derailed from finishing those at the end of the year because I was inspired to start (and finish!) a new 1940 dress that I’ll be blogging about early in 2024.
So, my ‘definitely-do’ list for 2024 includes:
Finishing a 1790s petticoat and bum pad (started and mostly finished in 2023)
Finishing a 1790s dress (started and mostly finished in 2023)
1770s yellow sacque/Robe à la Française (started in 2023)
I’m very pleased to have achieved my goal of finding more time to sew. I hope to continue that next year. That seems reflected in my to-do lists!
I’m very grateful for the many kindnesses and gifts in my life. Thanks to all of you who have continued to read, comment on, and appreciate this blog. Wishing you the very best in 2024!
In addition to the c. 1770 Pink Panniers that I recently posted about, the blue foundation petticoat pictured below (front view) is also intended to be easily loaned to friends.
I’m super pleased with this for a few reasons:
1 – I was able to easily replicate the construction steps that I used for my Apricot Petticoat in 2013, ten years ago!
2 – I was able to re-make the petticoat from an old project: the 1812 Blue Under Dress I also made in 2013. I was never very happy with this color under my 1812 Striped White Gown (it was blah) and within even a few years of being made it no longer fit the width of my back, anyway.
3 – This remake qualifies for the HSM Challenge # 8, All Tied Up:
Make something that closes with ties, or something that uses knots/bows as a decorative feature.
Just the facts:
Fabric/Materials: Approximately 3-4 yards blue cotton/polyester blend fabric (salvaged from an old dress).
Pattern: None, but I referenced both of these tutorials on constructing 18th century petticoats. Katherine’s tutorial is for a petticoat with an uneven length (to go over panniers, or a bum roll, for example). Rebecca’s tutorial is for a petticoat with an even length (the same length all the way around, to be worn without extra supports). Both tutorials have construction information, Rebecca’s includes a bit more detail in terms of which stitches and methods to use.
Year: Loosely 1700-1790.
Notions: 3ish yards of 1/8″ blue polyester ribbon and thread.
How historically accurate is it?: 70%. Accuracy gets knocked down because: 1- all unseen seams are machine sewn, 2- I used polyester ribbon for ties, 3- I haven’t seen research that shows cotton being used at this time for a single plain petticoat of this sort.
Hours to complete: 5? I didn’t really keep track.
First worn: Has not been worn yet.
Total cost: Free! Materials were either in the stash/gifted to me or re-used from other projects.
Here are more photos of the petticoat, starting with a back view.
And, close-up evidence of weird things, such as the twice-stitched machine hem, which could be useful if I ever want to lengthen this petticoat. These hems are leftovers from the salvaged dress–no hemming required for this petticoat. Perfect!
I followed the instructions as indicated in Just The Facts earlier in this post. This leads to tidily finished waistbands, as you can see here (along with a randomly located vertical seam).
(Another weird thing about this petticoat is where the seams landed on this, now that it is a petticoat and not the skirt of a dress, and that each seam is finished in a different method!)
And here’s a the same view, but with the front folded down to show how the petticoat is made shorter at center from than it is anywhere else.
Below, a final closeup of the extra length at the front folded down and left raw. The top fold is encased in the waistband, which is machine sewn and whip stitched down on the inside.
I was super pleased to just barely fit this petticoat length out of the skirt length of the old dress. The hem circumference was just about perfect, too! And, I was able to cut the waistband strips from the front bodice pieces of the original dress!
All in all, a quick and satisfying project! I’m much more pleased with this as a petticoat than I ever was with it as a dress.
For the holidays last year, friends and I decided to have an 1830s-clothed dinner at a local historical inn. We had a lovely meal, enjoyed the company, and had fun looking around at all of the lovely seasonal decorations!
There were new vignettes around every corner, with everything from human-sized nutcrackers to animals and greenery. These owls, perched up on a rafter, amused me very much!
In another, more modern part of the building, we paused to take photos with a tree whose decorations matched my 1832 Velvet Gown and 12 Days Of Christmas bells & berries hair accessory. This dress is always fun to wear–lightweight, despite the velvet, and with a silhouette that is always entertaining.
I hope your holidays are full of joy, friendship, and gratitude!
I finished a project! It’s small, but I’m very pleased with it.
The project is a sash to be worn with an in-progress 1790s dress. The goal is to be slowly progressing towards an entire 1790s outfit, with all of the appropriate accessories.
I’ve enjoyed making lists of what those accessories might be and getting them cut out and lined up for mindless hand sewing. That way, even when life is busy and I don’t have time to think about a project, I can still make progress and have something to sew, which brings me great joy and a sense of calm.
This project takes its inspiration and instruction from The American Duchess Guide To 18th Century Dressmaking, by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox.
I’m excited that the sash qualifies for the Historical Sew Monthly Challenge #3, Focus on the Fabric:
Make something in which the fabric colour/ texture/print/material etc. is the central feature of the design.
This fits the challenge in that the sash really isn’t at all about the construction details… The only cuts to the fabric were to make strips, and the only sewing is joining them and finishing the edges. So it really is all about the fabric!
Just the facts:
Fabric/Materials: ½ yard or so orange/gold shot polyester taffeta leftover from a very old project and 2 burgundy tassels.
Pattern: 1790s Sash in the book The American Duchess Guide To 18th Century Dressmaking, by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox.
Year: c. 1790.
Notions: Thread.
How historically accurate is it?: 90%. Polyester is obviously not historically accurate, but the dimensions and hand sewing method are.
Hours to complete: 5.
First worn: Has not been worn yet.
Total cost: $2 for the tassels and let’s say $.50 for the thread. We’ll count the fabric as free. So, $2.50.
I recently finished up a series of blog posts that document the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a new pair of 18th century stays. Here is the link to the most recent post (and I’ll include a link to all of the posts in the series at the end of this post).
I’m really, really excited that this pair of stays is complete! They are entirely hand sewn, which took quite a bit of time. And, they were a struggle to fit that ended in success. For both of those reasons, I’m excited that these qualify for the HSM Challenge #11: Style Starts At Home:
Make something which would generally be seen only within the household (ex: informal at-home wear, nightwear, undergarments)
How do these fit the challenge? Well, stays are an undergarment that would generally only be seen at home!
Just the facts:
Fabric/Materials: ⅔ yard natural linen for exterior (scraps from another project), 1 ⅓ yards thick/heavy white linen for interlining (scraps from another project), and ½ yard cream linen/cotton blend for lining
Pattern: 1785-1788 Half-Boned Stays from Mandy Barrington’s book Stays and Corsets: Historical Patterns Translated for the Modern Body
Year: c. 1785-1788
Notions: 29 10″-14″ zip ties that I cut to be 3/16″ wide for boning, 2 ½ yards 3/16″ wide natural linen twill tape for seam covering, 4 yards 1/2″ wide natural linen plain weave tape for binding, 3 yards white cotton cord for lacing, 1 yard ¼” wide cotton twill tape for front lacing, 2 yards ¾” wide cream cotton twill tape for straps, regular weight thread, and heavy weight thread
How historically accurate is it?: 90%. The pattern and methods are based on historical examples. The materials are pretty close, though the zip ties and cotton/linen blend aren’t perfect replicas of 18th century materials.
Hours to complete: I only kept track of about 50 hours, but my guess is that I spent at least 70-80 on these stays.
First worn: In May 2023 for photos.
Total cost: Approximately $40.
And, a few more photos: side and back view, as well as a view of the stays folded in half from the inside.
Did you notice the change in the name of these stays??? I’ve decided to call them the Stays of Success instead of the Stays of Fail!
This is partly to give them a more uplifting name that brings joy instead of disappointment, but also because I finally took photos of them… and then proceeded to wear them around the house for a number of hours because they were actually quite comfortable! Success!
Conclusions and Musings
I want to start by exploring why I originally named this pair of stays the ‘Stays of Fail’. That is because, until very recently, I felt that this attempt at stays was a failure in terms of comfort. The comfort is what I based the original name of them on.
By the time the construction was almost done, I felt slightly better and that they were a (very struggle-y) learning opportunity. After adapting them, I was thinking that ‘Stays of Fail’ maybe should turn into ‘Stays of Learning’ (although isn’t that every project?!?) or maybe just c. 1785 Hand Sewn Natural Linen Stays (but that’s not very exciting!).
Stays of Success is more entertaining!
Reflections On The Process
Would I use the book Stays and Corsets: Historical Patterns Translated for the Modern Body by Mandy Barrington again?
My experience, as I moved forward with the construction process, was that I regularly lamented the focus of the book on modern theatrical methods, as I was aiming to produce historical stays. When I wanted to go back and get detailed information about the materials, construction methods, measurements of bindings, etc. I found that information just wasn’t included. It was especially frustrating when information was just missing–such as the locations of the front eyelets–even on a pattern taken from the original.
At one point, I thought I could get around the problem of lack of historical detail in the book by looking for the online record of the Chertsey stays that the pattern was based on. Clever, I thought! However, I can only find two images of them and it seems that aside from that they aren’t available to view online in full. (The back lacing can be seen here and a front view can be seen by Google image searching ‘Chertsey museum stays’, but clicking through to the museum website doesn’t lead to the image.)
This lack of information is why I heavily relied on Patterns of Fashion 5 (PoF5)–because all of the detailed information I wanted (and more!) is there. (I did have to extrapolate and make decisions based on the information in PoF5 since it is all for similar stays but not for the exact pair that I’ve patterned.)
So, while using this book was a valuable experiment, I don’t think I would be inclined to use it to create another historical support garment for myself. However, I can see the benefit of drafting a pattern with similar proportions for someone who is vastly different than the original pattern size, for theatrical purposes in particular. For that purpose, I wouldn’t be interested in replicating the historical details and so the omissions I mentioned would not be a detriment to the garment I would be intending to produce.
In the end, I’ve learned a lot about what this book can, and can’t, do and that is helpful even if I’ve been a bit frustrated along the way due to my goals being different than what the book is aimed at.
Further Experiments
Unfortunately, one of the fitting problems I encountered might be due to an alteration I made in the mockup to take in the waist (I’m taking ownership of my actions!). This inside photo of the mockup shows the center front and side area alterations I made.
After finishing the stays, I was curious to see how the mockup would fit if I compared it to the finished stays. It turns out that I basically had to add in the width I’d taken out in the mockup when I added my back gusset. Sigh!
In theory, my alterations should have made the mockup slightly smaller than the finished stays with the added gusset, but the odd thing is that the mockup dimensions (with the alterations) are pretty similar to the finished stays (with the back gusset added in). So perhaps the real fabric stay pieces shrunk or wound up being smaller than I thought? Who knows?!? I’m done puzzling on this one!
In The Meantime…
While wrestling with these stays, I decided that I didn’t want my lack of stays to hold me back from making dresses any further and so I decided to start a whole new pair of stays instead off dealing with this pair (at least for a short time).
I held off sharing about them for quite awhile because I wanted to finish the saga of these stays… but eventually I gave up, and at the end of 2022 had great fun sharing the success and construction of my c. 1785 Green Linen Stays.
Resources
This is not comprehensive by any standards, but I thought it might be helpful to collect some links that I’ve found useful for anyone who wants to know more, see other people’s stays, or people who are making stays themselves. (These sites were especially useful for seeing the process when I didn’t have PoF5 on my cutting table!)
Atelier Nostalgia: showing the construction process of a set of Late 18th Century Stays, again with straps that are the same type as what I decided to do
The Fashionable Past: 1780s Stays Tutorial (not quite the same shape as mine, but the process is basically the same and this has lots of great photos of each step)
Rockin’ The Rococo: 18th century stays (the shape is earlier than mine, but the process is basically the same and this has lots of great photos of each step)
The Mantua Maker At Midnight: Making Stays 1730-1780s (this is earlier than mine, but the process is basically the same and this has lots of great photos of each step)
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 