A wonderful example of fashionable US Victorian day dress, composed of polonaise and trained skirt. Part 2 features the complete pattern.
There are many Tudor dresses of 1530 and later on the re-enactors' circuit, but few earlier ones. Let's go back to 1510 and do something different!
In this final part of the series, we will complete the skirt to the gown and the hood and see Mistress Etty in her completed gown at Kentwell.
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!
A wonderful example of fashionable Victorian day dress in America, composed of polonaise and trained skirt. Part 1: overview & skirt pattern.
Mistress Etty’s smock, kirtle bodice, forepart and foresleeves are complete. This month: completion of the kirtle, gown bodice and turnback sleeves.
A close look at an authentic Victorian dress, with many photos, construction and sewing details, and fashion plates of the time.
Making a new outfit for a young Tudor lady.
Part 2: foresleeves, forepart, kirtle layers, and revisiting the smock.
When looking at sleeve patterns for 18th century dresses, there's a rather striking difference when compared to modern sleeves—they have corners.
This is because for much of the 18th century, sleeves were set differently than they are today. The sleeve was set in the lower half of the armscye, the dress was put on, and then the sleeve head was pleated to fit the wearer.
This is a very efficient method and prevents a lot of the stress often associated with setting sleeves... yet for a seamstress sewing for and by herself, it presents a problem. How exactly do you pleat a sleeve on yourself?
It is surely a dream of many a young girl to wear a beautiful dress. It is doubly so when the young girl is a re-enactor playing the role of a Tudor Gentry girl.
One young lady will be given that very dream at Kentwell Hall's Tudor Events this summer. Eleven-year-old Etty has been portraying a young gentry girl for the past two years, but for the first time she will be wearing a tailor-made gown suitable for her character's status in the year 1538.
I have been commissioned to make the entire ensemble for Etty, and readers can follow the process, picking up techniques and tips that I use. All the techniques and patterning can be applied to adult women's gowns of the period as well as a young girl's gown.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
A common design element in the 16th & 17th centuries, Strap-work is an interesting and rich-looking textural technique that can enhance your garment without the need to spend a lot of money.
Alyxx takes us through a wealth of inspirational portraits and then shows us step-by-step how to reproduce the look.
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.
The bustle was allegedly invented in the mid-1860's when a society hostess's crinoline collapsed and her maid re-pinned the excess fabric to the back of the gown.
This story, while entertaining, is almost certainly apocryphal, and the design probably came about much more naturally as the train on a crinoline took on larger, more sweeping proportions.
Let me show you how to create a small boned cage, based very loosely on Hunnisett's 18th century pocket hoop pattern in Period Costume for Stage & Screen: Patterns for Women's Dress 1500-1800. This is not a totally historically accurate reproduction but it creates an exceptionally easy-to-wear support that gives a lovely period silhouette.
The widespread use of French Hoods amongst the middle and upper classes of 16th century England is a surprisingly static phenomenon.
Even as clothing styles changed with relative fluidity throughout the century, the constant favor that the French Hood had found allows us to examine its progression of style in a much more comprehensive manner.
I offer my theories in addition to positing new ideas as to how French Hoods were likely constructed between the years of 1530 and 1560, as well as how they evolved after their heyday had passed.
Feathers have been used on hats for centuries not just for their intrinsic beauty, but when you add feathers to a hat they retain a flow and bounce that makes them look almost alive.
In this article I'm going to cover several things that you can do to turn feathers into hat ornaments: burning, dyeing, stripping, shaping and clipping. These can result in some really eye-popping effects, from multi-coloured plumes to reconstructing the whole wings that Edwardian women so loved!
My passion for Ostrich plumes started when I saw the opening credits of the 1997 movie Wings of the Dove.
Where do such plumes come from?
How do milliners fabricate them and can I create such confections?
These are all questions I asked myself then, and they led me on a course of study and experimentation. In this article I will share some of what I have learned along the way.
or My hat looks like it has a dead fish on top because the bow just lies there! How can I fix that?
One of the most often used decorative elements on late Victorian and Edwardian hats were bows and ribbon loops.
To a non-milliner, trying to recreate some of these fantastic hats may seem a daunting task. Here are some tricks that simplify things.
This month Lynn shows us how to add large areas of silk flowers or ribbon decorations to a hat, without using glue and without sewing each one on individually.
Why would you want to add decorations to a hat in this way?
There are several reasons, but the most important would be to save the base hat from being damaged, either because it is vintage or because you might want to redress it in the future and anything you do now will have to be undone.
Vicky Clarke has a mission: to bring back historical fashion that flattered curvy women so well in the past, and make it practical and wearable for our 21st century lifestyles.
The skirt we'll be making in this article is a hybrid of original 1910s design, 1970s revival and design simply intended to flatter the body as it is.
We'll start by drafting a custom skirt block, which we'll then slash and spread to get the pattern we want. There are also instructions for an optional applique panel to accentuate the waist: another nod to the original Edwardian style.
I hear, frequently, “My husband wants me to make him a tailored 1880's coat, uhm... perhaps one day!” or simply “Tailoring is hard, why try?” This seems to be the natural response for people when they hear the word “tailoring”.
So begins our fascinating new series on historical tailoring, starting with the complete basics and working through to advanced techniques to construct a late Victorian lounge (informal) jacket. As well as allowing you to stop avoiding your husband's requests for something for him to wear, the dressmaker can learn an enormous amount from the genteel rules and precise approach of the historical tailor, giving her a great deal of tips and techniques to take back into ladieswear!
This month Marion McNealy shares with you some of the vintage corset making and fitting books that are online.
The books range from patterning and making an 1857 corset (perfect for the Single Pattern Project!) to 1920's and 30's corsets, corselettes, brassieres, bandeaux and girdles. We've even got an excellent book from the 1950's for corset saleswomen on fitting a customer and making her feel at ease during the fitting process, still applicable to customers today!
Have you ever walked into a large craft or fabric store to purchase the things you need to decorate that fantastic hat you're making, and been totally overwhelmed by the possibilities?
Should your hat be simple and elegant, or should it be a liberally decorated, multi-coloured feast of delights?
Professional period milliner Lynn McMasters shares her secrets with us in this new series on millinery design.
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