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Rate the Dress: Summer of 1778

Published by The Dreamstress

Despite the possible oddness and uncomfortableness of a boned skirt, and not everyone getting the Japanese influence (it was the best sort of influence – very subtle, most Japanese in that respect, among others!) most of you soundly approved of last week’s green party frock, and it rated a perfect 9 out of 10.

You’ve already seen this fashion plate featuring a very summery yellow and lilac frock of 1778 in my post on sabot sleeves, but I thought it deserved a closer look.

Gallerie des Modes et Costumes, Robe à la Circassienne, 1778, MFA Boston

The fashion plate describes the dress as (roughly – my French is pretty bad)

A Circassienne dress in the new style, of gauze in a sulphur colour, with trim in lilac gauze.  The flounce trim is in the same colour as the dress, as is the bottom of the sabot.  The whole thing trimmed in lilac and purple, even to the headdress

What do you think?  Do you like yellow and purple, or is the whole thing a bit twee, with all its pastels and ruffles and bows and polonaised skirts?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

I can’t believe this is a thing

Published by The Dreamstress

There was, up until a month ago, a sign in Wellington that reads “The Royal Antedeluvian Order of Buffalos”.

The sign was on the very artsy, independent (dare I say ‘hipster’) Bats Theatre, so I assumed it was a joke.

Nope.  Turns out its real.  There really is a Royal Antedeluvian Order of Buffalos, and despite all the stuff they have going against them, they take themselves pretty seriously.

In order to be a member, you have to be over 18, enter of your own free will, and be a “true and loyal supporter of the British Crown and Constitution.”  Oh, and be male.

No Buffalo Gals at the Buffs meeting

Obviously (thanks to the British bit), despite the name, there aren’t a lot of Buffalos organizations in the US.

I have no idea what goes on at Buffalo meetings today, but they started out as a club for stagehand and theatre techies in the early 19th century (well before techie was a word).

Their history sounds like it came out of a kids book: the actors had a club called Lushingtons, and they wouldn’t let the lowly stagehands into it, so the stagehands formed their own club, and thought of a cooler name.

The name?  The stagehands wanted to claim that they had been around longer than the actors, so they went looking for the awesomest sounding word for seriously-old that they could come up with.  Ancient was too simple, so they went with Antediluvian – ‘before the deluge’ (the great flood of the Bible).

That is totally what I would have done.

If I was 12.  And trying to one-up the neighbor boys and their club.

What about the Buffalo part?  That’s pretty exotic for England, right?  Apparently when the earliest Buffs got together for their meetings they decided that one thing they should do that was so super-important that it needed to be part of their name was to promote the obscure ballad “We’ll Chase the Buffalo.”  I’m pretty sure there was a lot of alcohol and not a lot of sense involved in this decision.

This thesis is backed up by the fact that one of the central positions in early Buffalo orders was the ‘City Taster’ whose job it was to ensure that the beverages at the chosen meeting tavern were up to snuff.

Despite the dubious merit of their origins, the Buffalo’s have actually done some awesome things, like paying for ambulances during WWI, and helping to found the first ambulance service in the UK, and founding orphanages and old-folks homes.  Good on them!

Still, it’s hard to get past that name!

Sweet & sour ‘Summer Berries’ shorts

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I told you about the Sew Weekly and showed off my first offering: the Little Black Dress-Clip Dress.  The Sew Weekly theme for this week was ‘buttons’.  I thought about doing something fancy with bound buttonholes, but I end up doing that sort of thing all the time, so there was no reason, and I don’t particularly need anything fancy and tailored and fussy in my wardrobe right now.

What I do need is simple summery things, and stuff I can do swing dancing in when it’s hot.  Solution: make a pair of vintage-inspired button front shorts.

I’m calling these the ‘Summer Berries’ shorts.  I’d originally meant for them to be quite nautical with white buttons, but when I went through my fabric stash I didn’t have anything that really worked, and the only thing that stood out to me as exciting at the fabric store were some raspberry pink buttons.

So now I have bright blueberry blue shorts with raspberry pink buttons.  And I’m eating a blackberry real-fruit ice cream as I model them.  Sweet.

I wore them on Friday for a fabric and vintage shopping mini-roadtrip to Palmerston North with Claire of the Vanity Case and Elizabeth of  PorcelainToy, who I have gotten to know since doing the costume for their music video, and who is just the sweetest thing ever.

I was very nervous about baring my knees for the whole day, so took a dress in case I chickened out halfway through.  Luckily I didn’t, and even got compliments from two strangers!

Despite that, I don’t love how I look in the shorts.  I feel like they emphasize my stomach and lack of waist.  That’s the sour part.

The photos were taken on a stop for real fruit ice cream (the BEST stuff ever – definitely something you must do on a NZ road trip) at the end of our trip.

So me and the shorts are doing pretty well for having been sitting in a car and rummaging through grubby op-shops for most of the day.

I’m wearing the shorts with a 1980s thrifted Japanese blouse – the same one I wore with the Pachyderm skirt.  I re-cut the neckline because I felt the blouse was turning me into a waistless block, and while the new neckline helps, looking at the picture above has convinced me to re-gift it to a thrift shop.  Sigh.  I guess one of my next projects should be a new white shirt for me!

Just the facts, Ma’am:

Fabric:  .6 metres of blueberry blue cotton twill, inherited from Nana.

Pattern:  Self drafted, based on the shorts from New York Patterns 1040.

Pattern alterations: I switched out the side buttons for a sailor-inspired button front, moved the pleats slightly away from the front (this turned out to be a bad idea), and sized up the pattern to fit me.

Year:  ca. 1938

Notions:  Raspberry pink buttons from The Fabric Warehouse, blue bias tape from the stash.

Hours:  2.5 hours to draft the pattern, fit, make alterations, and sew up the shorts

Techniques used:  Pattern drafting, buttonholes, false flat-felled seams (aka stitched-down french seams).

Will you make this again?  Yes, but not for me.  I don’t think I need more than one pair of high-waisted button-front shorts in my wardrobe.  Other  people have liked them so much though that I already have a client who wants a pair.

Any changes?  For future editions I’ll reinforce the front more and angle the buttons and pleats for a more flattering line.

Total cost:  $6.00 for the buttons.

And the inside?:  Sewed down french seams, bias bound placket, invisible hem stitch = practically perfect in every way.

Except for the part where I don’t love how I look in them.  That’s not perfect.

Sigh.  Can I have some more ice-cream now?