After two weeks of dresses that were very much one colour, I was determined to choose something a little more polychromatic this week. But as they say, the best laid plans…
General reaction to the dress: “Yes, yes, that fabric! And oooh, that back pattern matching! But…umm…not so happy about front non-matchingness. And the stomacher just isn’t doing it.
But oh, that colour is so cheerful, and that fabric is so gorgeous, so…”
The Total: 9.4 out of 10
Yay for yellow!
This week: a very green 1810s dress,
I was determined to choose a Rate the Dress that didn’t feature such a single, strong, colour note. And then, when I went searching for the right thing, this dress chose itself. What could I do?
Other than the colour, the aspect of this dress that instantly struck me is the hem treatment, with a ruched edging, as well as a gathered ruffle with piped centre.
I suspect this dress is shown on a mannequin that is slightly too short, and that it would actually have been worn a few inches off the floor, to facilitate dancing, and to keep the hem treatment from trailing on the ground.
And it’s definitely a little crushed and flatted, especially in the sleeves and trim department – but that’s one of those things I always ask you to overlook when rating.
So, will green beat out purple and equal (or maybe even beat?) yellow? Let’s find out!
Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10
A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.
(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)
I’m still catching up on my historical sewing from 2018, but don’t get too excited, because the bits I haven’t blogged really aren’t that exciting.
Like this petticoat. It’s useful, it’s helpful, it’s generally nicely made, but exciting? Not really.
I based the pattern on the width of my fabric + the dimensions of the skirts in a couple of dresses ca. 1810 in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion and Cassidy Percoco’s Regency Women’s Dress. I figure petticoat dimensions couldn’t have been that different to skirt dimensions.
I have a problem with anything with narrow straps sliding off my shoulders because I have sloping shoulders and scoliosis, PLUS I’ve had a problem with Regency petticoats wanting to pull down in the back with the weight of gathers, so I solved both with this one by angling my straps to the centre back of the petticoat.
The drawstring gathers, while I have no idea if they are accurate, allow it to be a little more adjustable to the person wearing it.
I intend to wear this petticoat under my 1813 Kashmiri dress, so I sewed 6 lines of tucks into the hem, to help it to support the slightly heavier wool fabric.
The tucks, while not exactly exciting fabric manipulation, did mean that I could enter it into the October Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge, because that’s when I finished the petticoat!
The Challenge:#10 Fabric Manipulation
Fabric: 2m of cotton lawn, found at an opshop
Pattern: None, based off of skirt patterns
Year: ca. 1810
Notions: thread, cotton tape
How historically accurate is it?:The shape is accurate to a Regency skirt, but I made up a number of the construction techniques, including the back gathers, so maybe 40%
Hours to complete: 3 hours – a bit more time for tucks and flat felled seams
First worn:by a friend during out Sew & Eat Historical Retreat, 20 October
Today’s rate the dress is brought to you courtesy of the unprecedented heatwave that is hitting New Zealand. It’s so bright and sunny that I picked an equally bright and sunny dress to go with it – though I wouldn’t want to be wearing the heavy silk of this weeks Rate the Dress in the heat!
A couple of you loved last weeks dress, but most people thought it was nice but not fantastic. Noted let-downs were the ‘seaweed-y’ trim, and that pesky centre front seam. Still, all the ratings were in the top half of the range, so I guess my comparisons to horrible purple rooms didn’t put you off too much – or you were feeling contrary so had to rate it well, simply because I made the comparison 😉
The Total: 8.3 out of 10
Middling.
This week:
I’m rather famous/notorious for being a fan of yellow, and I try not to lean into that too much with Rate the Dress. I wouldn’t be providing an accurate view of 18th century fashion if I didn’t show you the occasional bright yellow dress though, because there are somany of them!
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
This Anglaise is notable for its extremely vivid yellow hue: bright even for a century where saturated yellow dresses were a major fashion feature.
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
The yellow silk features brocaded patterning of lush flowers in shades of pink and green.
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
The patterning is placed symmetrically across the back of the dress, drawing the eye to the precise stitched-down pleats that flow down the back of the bodice, into the skirt, with no waist seam: the defining feature of an Anglaise or English Gown.
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
The same symmetrical placement is repeated in the front of the bodice, but the stomacher, skirt, and petticoat abandon attempts to mirror the fabric patterning.
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
Though the fabric is no longer symmetrical, the trim of both stomacher and petticoat is. The stomacher uses a trim placement very similar to the one that inspired my frou-frou stomacher, though the end result is quite different.
Robe à l’anglaise, England (Spitalfields), c. 1750. Yellow brocaded silk, woven with brightly coloured large-scale oriental poppies, posies and swags, the ground figured with arabesques and wine silk spotted cartouches, linen lining, trimmed with pinked furbelows; stomacher trimmed with rosettes and braid, sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions
The overall trimming of the dress is quite subdued, allowing the exuberance of the florals and the colour to speak for the dress.
What is it saying to you?
Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10
A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting. It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.
(as usual, nothing more complicated than a .5. I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment, so I can find it! And 0 is not on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks in advance!)
