The Dreamstress

I’ve got a confession.  I find writing tester posts really difficult.  I’m really bad at taking compliments (I know, I know, I’m working on it!).  So I sit down to write these posts and get all gushy about how fabulous the tester makes are (because they are!), and then my brain starts worrying that the testers will be as awkward as I am about compliments and  gets in a horrid loop freaking out that maybe I’m actually making them uncomfortable, but I can’t not gush, because then it wouldn’t be true…

Also, I use fabulous, fantastic, gorgeous, delightful and beautiful too often, because they are just such perfect words.

My parents, however, had the perfect reassurance for this.  As my dad puts it “Don’t worry about what you write, we all just want to see the photos”.  Thanks Dad!

But it’s true.  You’re all just here to see the fabulous makes!

Reminder: the Marie, Charlotte, and Sophia patterns, and the combined pack with all three, are on sale until Tue 13 December NZ Time (so that’s Monday for most of the rest of the world) – don’t miss out!

It’s the final post in my series of posts on the inspiration behind the Marie, Charlotte and Sophie patterns.  Last, but absolutely not least, is, the Sophia:

The Inspiration:

The primary basis for the Sophia Mantle is this faaaaaaaabulous mantle from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Enormous hood?   Gorgeous fabric?  Fun trim?  What’s not to love!

While the Metropolitan Museum of Art example is particularly spectacular, late 18th century images of dress are full of examples of mantles with full pleated hoods that are wide enough to fall as collars around the shoulders:

(and yes, the innuendo in that image is very purposeful).

In addition to the many images of this style of mantle, there are a number of other extant examples, like this gorgeous pink satin one:

This wool short cloak, which, while it has a very different body, and different construction, is an example of a wool garment with this style of hood:

Other than the hood, this cloak is quite different to the Sophia, but is an interesting comparison point.  The Marie & Charlotte Mantle patterns cover the type of finishing seen on the cloak.

The Construction:

While some of the images of this style of mantle appear to show lighter weight unlined mantles, all of the extant examples (not counting the cloak, as is quite different in its pattern and construction) are more substantial lined garments.  They also have really fabulous trim: marabou and fringe and fur!

We decided to focus on a lined, hooded mantle with three trim options: fur, fringe, and marabou.

As it’s very hard to find modern fringe that matches the fringing on 18th century garments, we included instructions on making your own fringe.  It’s time consuming, but a wonderful way to give a really period finish to your garments.

And, of course, the Sophia can be mashed up with both the Marie and Charlotte.

Make it unlined based on the instructions for unlined mantles in either of those patterns.  Turn it into a hoodless wrap using their neck finish techniques.  Use the lace trim instructions in the Marie to trim it with lace, like the mantles shown in so many fashion plates and satirical prints.

Alter the hanging lappets to be rounded points based  on the Charlotte pattern.  It’s so adaptable!

 

Reminder: the Marie, Charlotte, and Sophia patterns, and the combined pack with all three, are on sale until Tue 13 December – don’t miss out!

Continuing on with my series of posts on the inspiration behind the Marie, Charlotte and Sophie patterns.  What did we base the Charlotte Mantle on?

 

The Marie hugely inspired by extant mantles, but for the Charlotte we looked at another primary 18th c resource: the two mantle diagrams illustrated in Diderot’s Encyclopédie.

Diderot’s Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts) was a wildly ambitious general encyclopedia published between 1751 and 1772, with numerous later additions.  It aimed not just to cover all the worlds knowledge, but to make it accessible to the masses.

One of the things the Encyclopédie covers is the manufacturing of garments.  There are illustrations of different garment makers workshops, and diagrams of a number of types of dress, from stays to mantles.

The Patterns:

While the Encyclopédie is slightly earlier, the mantle patterns, made up, have exactly the shape of fashionable mantles from the 1770s onwards.

One of the patterns has the wide shape with small points shown here:

And here:

And the other the long, narrow lappets shown here:

And here:

These became the basis for View A and B of the Charlotte, respectively.

The Encyclopédie is a fantastic source for information, but its pattern diagrams are not actually patterns.  They are not drawn to any scale, and were not edited or engraved by someone with garment construction knowledge.

So they are an amazing starting point, but we still had to do extensive checking of the pattern against extant garments and visual sources to create a pattern that fits correctly on a human, and really looks like a period garment.

The Construction:

We also had to figure out all the construction, and decide what techniques to include in the pattern.

The Marie Mantle is unlined, because our primary inspiration pieces were unlined (and because by the time we’d included instructions for unlined silk, wool, and lace mantles, all of which take different techniques, we were up to 26 pages!).

The Charlotte Mantle pattern includes both instructions for unlined mantles, so you can make sheer wraps like this gauzy white number:

And for lined mantles, like this charming pink and black number:

And this subtle version with white hood:

The lining techniques given in the Charlotte are specifically designed so that if you have both the Marie and Charlotte, you can line the Marie using the instructions given in the Charlotte.

The Trim:

For Charlotte’s trim we took inspiration from the narrower trim with centred application shown on 1780s mantles:

The 1780s fashion for trims is quite different to the wider, looser ruffles and rococo swirls of the earlier mantles that inspired the Marie.

Based on this, we settled in a narrow box pleat based primarily on the Galerie des Modes plate above.

It’s a specifically 1780s touch that perfectly captures the aesthetic of that decade.

But, of course, you can also mix and match the Marie and Charlotte trims to give either mantle pattern a different look!

The Hood:

Finally we gave the Charlotte’s hood a point of difference to the Marie’s (other than its increased size), with a fan-pleated gather, instead of a star gather.