Your Wardrobe Unlock'd

A wonderful example of fashionable US Victorian day dress, composed of polonaise and trained skirt. Part 2 features the complete pattern.

Mistress Etty’s smock, kirtle bodice, forepart and foresleeves are complete.  This month: completion of the kirtle, gown bodice and turnback sleeves.

Making a new outfit for a young Tudor lady.

Part 2: foresleeves, forepart, kirtle layers, and revisiting the smock.

This early 1790s brocade bodice in Katherine's collection retains the straight front and structured lines of earlier dresses, but also hints at the later 1790s fashions with its higher waist line.

It also showcases a variety of different construction and seam finishing techniques, as each seam and edge is finished differently.

Last month I analyzed the skirt of a lingerie dress. This month I'll be looking at the associated blouse. In the Belle Époque literature the garment we're discussing goes by many names: waist, shirt-waist, lingerie waist, and lingerie blouse. I've chosen the term "lingerie blouse" because "blouse" is the only one of those terms that's still in use now for a vaguely similar garment.

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.

I've often been frustrated that there are wonderful Victorian patterns available (published in the period or drafted from extant dresses) but there is very little information on how to put the pieces together or on the other finishing details that go into making historical dress.

Here I'll address this gap by doing a photographic analysis of the construction techniques used in three Victorian evening bodices in my personal collection.

Due to the Single Pattern Project, I'm most interested in the elliptical style. Two of the bodices were either worn with elliptical skirts or with the early bustle style, the third was probably worn with the earlier circular hoop style.

While there are wonderful Victorian dress patterns available, either published in the period or drafted from extant dresses,  there is very little information around on how to put the pieces together in a historically accurate way or complete the other finishing details that go into making a dress of this style.

If you're going to go for accuracy with your Single Pattern Project, Sunny Buchler redresses the balance for you this month with her photographic analysis and comparison of the construction techniques used in four 1860s bodices in her personal collection.

Nine pages and over a hundred large and detailed clickable images in this article alone will give you every minute detail you could ever want to know about constructing your bodice!