All posts tagged: 1760s

Rate the Dress: Marie Christine of Austria in somewhat less pink

What to say about last week’s dress….oh dear. Not a lot of love from most of you. So much to complain about…colour, textures, silhouette, and that pectoral fin. Mostly colour though. Some enterprising viewers noted that if you were colourblind, the chartreuse and pale pink looked lovely together, and wondered if the wearer/maker had been colourblind. Personally I rather liked the colours – they are so unexpected, and the Victorians did love to play with wild colour schemes. I will agree that the dress had other issues, so despite the few people who really loved it, I’m not surprised that the final rating was a 3.4 out of 10 Since so many of you had problems with the colour, let’s tone the palette down in this weeks ‘Rate the Dress’. The last time we looked at Marie Antoinette’s sister Marie Christine she was wearing pink, and lots of it. You called her a ‘blinged out sheep’ with an 18th century mullet’, and still managed to give her a 6.5 out of 10. Today her ensemble …

Rate the Dress: Gentleman in Red, 1760s

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week’s 1840s plaid-ish dress was like a woman who is technically not the least bit beautiful, but who is so clever and witty with her looks that she tricks people into thinking she is more attractive than her more classically arranged sisters. The illusion divided you into those who were completely taken in by the subterfudge, those who saw it and admired her more for it, those who looked straight for the true aesthetic and missed the wit altogether, and those who saw and dismissed the clever screen and cast your vote for the academically prescribed aesthetic. Which is right? All of them, and none of them! They are what make the world interesting. And together mush all the sharp ups and downs of the ratings into a respectable but not exactly brilliant 6.9 out of 10. Last week one of the main complaints from the latter two camps was that the colours of the dress were too dull. I hope this is bright enough for you. Celebrated Italian painter Pompeo Batoni depicts Edward …

The 18th century man’s jacket: construction & fittings

Published by The Dreamstress

I didn’t take a lot of construction photos while I made the 18th century man’s jacket, but I’ll do my best to explain how I made it. I’m sure it is not a historically accurate technique, but it made a very sturdy garment, with no machine sewing showing on the outside. I started with the two front chest pieces of the jacket First, I sewed around the front edge, bottom edge, and the edge of the first pleat of the jacket, with the outer and lining fabric right sides together. This meant that when I turned the pieces right side out and pressed them, the front, hem, and pleat edge were all finished. Then I sewed placed the back pieces with their lining fabrics, right sides together, and sewed down from the centre back pleat, along their hems, and up the side pleat. Then I turned them right sides out, and pressed the now-finished hem. So basically, all the hemming on the jacket was done by bag-hemming. With the back pieces hemmed, but still separate, …