A wonderful example of fashionable US Victorian day dress, composed of polonaise and trained skirt. Part 2 features the complete pattern.
I have the honor to own my great-grandmother’s 1875 wedding dress. The more I look closely at this heirloom, the more fascinating it is!
Lynn continues her series on Natural Form Era Victorian hairpieces by showing step-by-step how to create a curly hairpiece, pin curls and curly bangs.
How to make several must-have Victorian hairpieces from an inexpensive but lifelike synthetic hair. Let's start by making a switch.
A wonderful example of fashionable Victorian day dress in America, composed of polonaise and trained skirt. Part 1: overview & skirt pattern.
An eye-opening combination of machine sewing and delicate hand stitching.
Bonus article from FR
Hecklinger's Ladies Garments, published in 1886, includes wonderful engravings of fashionable trimmings. We add the instructions!
Making sense of ladies' underwear 1876-82.
2: What to wear over the corset and under the dress, plus fabrics.
This month we have two questions:
Joyce inquires about plus size articles and what style of dress she would look best in (and gets some wonderful responses);
Elizabeth writes and wonders how to adjust a 1770's waistcoat pattern for a man with a large stomach (and learns that it probably won't be that much trouble.)
The underwear situation in the Natural Form Era was.... complicated! Ladies had an outfit for every situation and time of day, and underwear to go with it. To further add confusion, the "Dress Reform" movement was at its height: its main focus was on changing corsets and what was worn underneath them, all in the name of health.
So what did women wear under their dresses? It all depends on a variety of factors. I'll walk you through all the different layer options starting from the skin out, with variations in necklines and politics. Next month I'll complete the layers and show you how to combine them.
As a new costume enthusiast, you might be delighted with a particular Victorian pattern and sew it straight out of the envelope, just as it is. Experienced dressmakers might fall in love with an antique fashion plate, and recreate it to make something genuinely special.
But what if you want to make a gown that is not a direct copy of a fashion plate, or a pattern that dozens of people have already made? Suppose you want to design an original Victorian costume—something that no one's seen before, and yet which would be right at home on the pages of La Mode Illustrée, Godey's Home Journal, or Harper's Bazar?
If you've "been there, done that" and now want to make a truly original Victorian costume, read on!
We've gone through our links, pored over the bookshelves and searched for the best in books to help you create a masterpiece for the Natural Form Era 1876-1882.
We've got an awesome trilogy of ladies' tailoring books by Charles Hecklinger and his equally amazing trilogy of men's tailoring books.
Having trouble getting a smooth fit to a cuirass bodice or Princess dress? We've found period fitting guides with step-by-step pictures to guide you through the process. Want to know what options women had for corsets and petticoats? Check out a mail order catalog from 1883. And that's just the free stuff, not from a bookstore!
This month on the Letters, Questions and Answers page we have:
Two requests for men's clothing articles (and the answer)
Regency pinafores as seen in Jane Austen films: did they really exist?
A free, globally available wealth of Regency fashion plates in full color
What does Dickens mean by a "comforter" in A Christmas Carol?
During the Natural Form Era (1876-1882), straw was a popular material for hats and bonnets in both summer and winter.
I'll show you an easy technique to create three different Natural Form hat shapes by altering and decorating modern straw sun hats and using some items found around the house.
This month:
Trisha asks about creating a dress form for a French fashion doll and patterns for it.
Shawn inquires about the historically correct way to piece an 1880 chemise
Cathy explains about the DPP Corsets competition and FR
Knitted, embroidered, striped and painted: the Natural Form era had a diversity of stocking options for ladies.
Far beyond plain black or white, catalogs of the era carried fancy knitted stockings in gold, green and bright cardinal red zig zags, striped stockings in cardinal red, garnet, tan, grey and blue and embroidered cotton stockings in red, gold, black and white.
So get ready to shop for the perfect stockings, thread your embroidery needle or grab your knitting needles! We're diving into the realm of stockings and socks with fashion reports, catalogs from 1882, stocking embroidery diagrams and lots of knitting patterns for socks and stockings for all ages.
Now that we have had an introduction into the fashion of the Natural Form, it's time to proceed with choosing the details of your outfit. There are many options depending on the year that's taken your fancy.
I will start by focussing on the particulars of fashion by year, and covering the three types of dress: Day dress, Evening dress and Ball dress.
"The ideal at present is the greatest possible flatness and straightness: a woman is a pencil covered with raiment" ~ October 23, 1875, Harper's Bazar.
We shall be wandering into that very peculiar era of fashion in the Victorian Era, known as the Natural Form with its Cuirass Bodice.
Since fashion is always intertwined with economics and war, I will take a summarized look at the socio-economic climate that occurred during this era.
Overcoming the structural challenges of this project was a breeze for our master milliner Lynn McMasters, but choosing how to finish off the covering to match Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter in the new Alice in Wonderland movie was much more difficult.
Here she shares the details on covering and finishing this fantasy topper, including how she printed her own fabric and made her own supersized hatpins. The result demonstrates how to bend and shape basic, accurate period costume ideas into enviable theatrical, fantasy, gothic or steampunk works of art!
Last month I showed you how to draft the front, back and side back of the Seaside Jacket. This month, I show you how to true up the pattern, fit the jacket, draft the sleeves and construct the jacket.
I'll also share some key lessons I learned in this whole process, including a classic mistake.
We give here, the front and back view of a Lady's Sea-side Jacket. It is made of light cloth or flannel, and braided as seen in the design. The diagram on the next page, which represents the front and back, will enable any lady to cut it out, fit it correctly and make it up at very little expense. It cannot fail to please. Peterson's Magazine, August 1873
This month Marion discusses the issues she ran into in using the straight Peterson's patterns, how to overcome it, and pattern the jacket.
Next month, she'll walk through the truing up the pattern, fitting, drafting the sleeves and making up the jacket.
When is a flat pattern not a flat pattern? When is a Hatter sane?
The answer to the second question is rarely: we’re all mad.
The answer to the first is: when you can use a flat pattern to create a hat that looks like it couldn’t have been made with a flat pattern but really was by joining flat shapes together to construct a three dimensional shape.
With a new Hatter due to hit cinema screens soon, we thought we'd ask Lynn how to create his signature topper!
Marion traces the beginnings of the second bustle era by reviewing fashion illustrations of 1868-1869 from Peterson's, Arthur's and Godey's magazines.
If that isn't enough, also included are all patterns published by Peterson's in 1869!
If you’re used to the modern approach to sewing, then the Victorians' methods might seem a little strange at first. Once you’re used to them, however, they truly make sense and help to make your clothing look authentic.
This pink satin evening bodice gives a good overview of late Victorian construction techniques. Katherine shares her observations as well as fifty photos of the detail of the inside and outside of an evening bodice from the 1880s.
Originally published as part of our 2009 Single Pattern Project, this extract from our lengthy article on recreating 1860s underthings focusses on that most intimidating of engineered supports: the cage crinoline.
Sunny Buchler talks you through the history, the practicalities of moving in such a contraption, patterns and book references.
1868-1875 is commonly known as "The First Bustle" period, but in fact it was one of several bustle periods in the 19th century, and it certainly wasn't the first!
This month we start a fashion review series, looking at the looping, shirring, pleating and draping methods that we now call a "bustle".
In our recent survey you told us that you'd like to see more how-tos involving costume accessories.
Loren Dearborn shares with us two easy techniques, using polymer clay, to create beautiful and convincing portrait and mourning jewelry appropriate for the 18th and 19th centuries.
Mary Dotson shares with us pictures of late 1890's wool tailored suit from her collection.
About ten years ago, I was approached by a vintage clothing dealer who though I might fit an 1890s dress.
Marion McNealy flips through her late 1890's fashion magazine collection and not only dates the suit to a specific season and year but finds the fashion plate that probably inspired it.
For the Victorians, methods of folding and draping the fabric of a bustle truly developed into an art form. There were many different styles with assorted fanciful names like "The Waterfall", which burst in and out of fashion.
I'm going to show you how I created my ladybird gown's "Butterfly" bustle drape. It is very simple and needs no pattern at all, being created from just a rectangle of fabric.
Other dressmakers and designers have experimented with this style too, and it can still be seen in some museum pieces. It is made to be worn over the bustle cage and a plain skirt.
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