The Dreamstress

Latest Posts

The Scroop Patterns Selina Blouse ScroopPatterns.com

Building Your Own 1910s & WWI Wardrobe: Blouses, Skirts & Suits

Continuing on my series on making your own 1910s & WWI era wardrobe (with a focus on 1914-19), here are patterns for making your classic separates: blouses, skirts & suits.

The patterns I’ve included here are from pattern companies I’ve made items from, or have helped students or friends make items from, and can recommend on that basis.

I have not included pattern companies that I do not recommend, or pattern companies I have seen or tested in any way. I did not include patterns that are essentially modern blocks updated with a period aesthetic: I find that they rarely give the correct look.

Blouses:

Multi Sized:

Scroop Patterns: Selina Blouse (1913-19). A mid ‘teens blouse with detailed, fully-illustrated instructions.
Wearing History: Edwardian 1910s blouse & guimpe: suitable for earlier 1910s impressions, and less up-to-date and fashionable later 1910s impressions.
Wearing History: Elsie 1910s WWI blouse: a great mid-1910s blouse with period sewing instructions.
Folkwear 1918 Armistice Blouse: I’m including this, but with caveats. The more I look at this pattern, and compare it to period originals, the more it looks to me like the pattern was either based off a modern block, or altered to fit modern standards and fit, and isn’t really an accurate pattern.
New Vintage Lady ‘Gibson Girl’ Blouse & Skirt: A versatile 1910s pattern for bust sizes 40″-60″. The blouse is suitable for 1914 onwards, but the skirt is a slimmer style from ca 1912. I’ve linked to the paper pattern, but it’s also available as a PDF.

Single Sized:

Skirts:

Multi Sized:

Wearing History 1909-1914 Cordelia Skirt
Scroop Patterns Kilbirnie Skirt (1915-18). Detailed instructions and it goes perfectly with the Selina Blouse.
Wearing History ca. 1917 Evelyn Skirt
New Vintage Lady ‘Gibson Girl’ Blouse & Skirt: A versatile 1910s pattern for bust sizes 40″-60″. The blouse is suitable for 1914 onwards, but the skirt is a slimmer style from ca 1912.

Single Sized:

Suits:

Multi Sized:

Folkwear 1914 Metropolitan Suit: I’ve included this pattern, and the other Folkwear suit pattern, because I know people who love them both, however, I’ve not tried them myself, and not all of the Folkwear patterns I’ve tried have been accurate to their period.
Past Patterns 1914 Misses Sailor Suit
Folkwear 1915 Travelling Suit
Wearing History 1916 Suit — Jacket — Skirt

Rate the Dress: Crinoline Era Purple Stripes

Published by The Dreamstress

The response to last week’s Rate the Dress was quite a surprise to me, so this week I’ve picked something surprising: a crinoline era dress that combines a very traditional silhouette, and very traditional trimmings, with very unusual fabric, in a very unusual layout. What will you make of it?

Last week: A blue bustle-era dress with embroidered roses

I can never exactly predict how a garment will be received, but sometimes I can make a pretty good guess. Less often, I am totally and completely wrong. Last week was one of those. I thought the dress was an awful mish-mash of unrelated ideas, in a very unflattering colour combination. Most of you, however, did not agree!

The Total: 9.2 out of 10

It’s quite unusual for me to think a dress is a 6, and most of you think it’s a 9 or 10 – usually it’s exactly the opposite. It’s great though: lovely to see totally different perspectives.

This week:

This striking purple and grey number makes full use of its bold, big stripes to accentuate the design details, from the wide collar, to the darts that shape the bodice.

Woman’s dress, American about 1856—58, Silk plain weave ( taffeta), trimmed with silk fringe tassels, machine embroidered net, bobbin lace, MFA Boston, 50.474a-b

Rows of tasselled fringe in perfectly matched colours, provide a textural counterpoint to the shiny taffeta, and a visual balance to the strong vertical lines.

The front tassels mimic the desired silhouette, and create the faux-front effect fashionable in the 1850s.

Woman’s dress, American about 1856—58, Silk plain weave ( taffeta), trimmed with silk fringe tassels, machine embroidered net, bobbin lace, MFA Boston, 50.474a-b

Interestingly the fabric layout mixes balanced and unbalanced stripes, and the dressmaker chose to showcase an unbalanced pattern across the back of the dress, creating an interesting visual asymmetry in a dress that is otherwise completely balanced from side to side.

Woman’s dress, American about 1856—58, Silk plain weave ( taffeta), trimmed with silk fringe tassels, machine embroidered net, bobbin lace, MFA Boston, 50.474a-b

The various available images show a range of colours, from muted pinky-mauves, to almost blue-purple.

Woman’s dress, American about 1856—58, Silk plain weave ( taffeta), trimmed with silk fringe tassels, machine embroidered net, bobbin lace, MFA Boston, 50.474a-b

What do you think of the stripey-tassle-y concoction?

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. However 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! Thanks in advance!)

SaveSave

Gossard Corsets ad, The Designer Oct 1916, thedreamstress.com

Building your own 1910s & WWI Wardrobe: The Undergarments

Published by The Dreamstress

It’s less than a month until Costume College 2018, and my instagram and facebook feeds are full of people panic-sewing for the event. I’m not going this year, but all the excitement has reminded me of the talks I did last year, and how I’ve never put most of that information online.

In a timely coincidence, a number of people have asked me recently what my favourite Edwardian & WWI era patterns are, and how I built my wardrobe for my Fortnight in 1916 living-history project.

One of my talks at Costume College last year was ‘The Great War Wardrobe‘: an in-depth exploration of WWI era home-front fashion, along with a guide on how to build a complete wardrobe from the period. I’m still working out how to turn the fashion history side of the class into workable blog posts, but will (hopefully) get those sorted and polished soon.

For now, here is a quick series on where to get patterns to make a 1910s (with a focus on 1914-19) era wardrobe.

Corsets:

Scroop Patterns: Rilla Corset (1913-1921):
- E-Pattern
Truly Victorian TVE13: 1913 Corset Pattern

For more on what you’re looking to achieve with your corset, check out my series on Body Ideals & Corsetry 1913-1921

Under your corset, you’ll need some form of undergarments to protect the corset from you, and you from the corset:

Under the Corset:

Multi Sized:

Truly Victorian: TVE02 1900s underwear: Slightly early for the period, and best if you are doing an impression of an older woman, whose style might not be so up-to-date.
Wearing History: Circa 1917 Combination Underwear & Chemise This is the pattern I used for all of my Fortnight in 1916 undergarments

Single Sized:

Vintage Pattern Lending Library: Envelope chemise (46” bust)

Over the Corset:

Multi Sized:

Folkwear: Edwardian Underthings. Slightly early for the period, and best if you are doing an impression of an older woman, whose style might not be so up-to-date. Shortened, the petticoat is suitable for 1915-17 as well. I’m not sure the camisole is entirely accurate in cut.
Scroop Patterns: Ettie Petticoat. Includes four views covering 1890-1920, and instructions on period decorations techniques, like insertion lace.
Truly Victorian: Late Edwardian Petticoat Pattern Suitable for the long, slim skirts of 1909-14
Wearing History: 1910s corset cover or camisole This is the pattern I used for all of my Fortnight in 1916 camisoles
Wearing History: 1910s Combination Underwear

The Scroop Patterns Ettie Petticoat View C scrooppatterns.com

Negligee:

Single Sized

Wearing History: 1910s Empire Negligee Pattern (36″ bust)

Because every well-dressed WWI era lady needs an elegant robe or negligee to swan about the house in!

Books:

There are also lots of books that include scaled patterns for corsets and other undergarments from this era (well, primarily corsets). I recommend:

McNealy, Marion. Corset Cutting & Making (this book is amazing)
Salen, Jill. Corsetmaking: Historical Patterns & Techniques
Waugh, Nora. Corsets & Crinolines

I’ll be putting up the rest of my guide over the next two weeks!