All posts filed under: 19th Century

Rate the dress: Gold and glitter in the 1870s

Last week I showed you a very embellished (and everything elsed) yellow ballgown from 1889. You were a little confused by the bodice design – and you weren’t the only one. The Met couldn’t decide which was the front and which was the back either. A few of you loved it, but most of you felt that there was just too much embellishment, and too many different kinds of embellishment, and it came in at a rather disappointing 6 out of 10. This week, since it is the Embellishment challenge on the Historical Sew Fortnightly, I’m going to risk it and post another heavily embellished dress, this one from a decade before the yellow ballgown. Like the ballgown, this afternoon/dinner dress is monocolour and has a variety of different kinds of trim: beading, ruching, buttons, bows, ruffles and pleats, arranged asymmetrically around the dress. What do you think? Does this frock manage to harmonise all its different embellishments more successfully than last week’s frock? Or is it another example of too much, with too little …

Rate the dress: Embellished stripes and flora

Published by The Dreamstress

There was a whole range of opinions on Margaret’s pink cloak over fur surcoat with blue skirt over gold frock while holding red book against red and dark blue checked curtain, ranging from “elegant and royal” to “meh” to “great big pink curtain” (with Mrs C then suggesting that I should make it out of some pink curtains in her stash) to “very sexy medieval surcoat”. Mostly though you thought there were a lot of colours (this could be good or bad) and that it was a pity the cloak hid so much. With everything going on Margaret came in at a respectable 7.1 out of 10 This week, I’ve gone for less colours, though there is still lots going on, and no wraps to hide the dress details. This week’s Rate the Dress theme is ‘All the Challenges‘. I don’t see this yellow (what shade depends on which photo you believe) evening dress from the Metropolitan Museum of Art having much to do with peasants or the seaside (unless, perhaps it was …

The 1813 Kashmiri dress: bodice construction details

Published by The Dreamstress

I’ve shown you the skirt construction details for the 1813 Kashmiri dress, and promised to do the bodice construction in just as much detail. I’ve covered them slighty here as well. I started by cutting out my bodice pieces in white linen, to serve as a lining/under support. The inner linen lining/under support layer was sewn together first, and I checked the fit of it. I ended up letting it out about 1/2 and inch in the centre front. With the under support sewn together, I began sewing on the wool twill outer layer, starting with the side-back pieces. Then the centre back piece got sewed on, and the centre back and back neckline got finished: Then (after lots of dithering and messing with different options) I sewed on the white silk front panel, and sewed the side-front wool pieces to it. Then the front wool drape got sewn down over both pieces (after lots of draping and pinning to get the look right). The point where the drape meets at the centre waist is …