All posts tagged: 1760s

Rate the Dress: Marie Christine in lots of pink

With most of the ‘Rate the Dresses’ I’m happy to sit back.  I like hearing what you have to say: the comparisons, the opinions, the different design perspectives.  Very, very occasionally though, I feel the need to leave my own comment.  Last week’s Rate the Dress was one of those. And because this is my blog, I get to post it up front and centre: If  Worth Jr’s contemporaneous afternoon dress  was “small furry animal tipped the inkwell over, amused itself in the subsequent puddle, then took a stroll across the sketches for the new season” with results included in the final garments, this dress was ‘small furry animal vomited hairball on sketch, then tipped the inkwell over and rolled in the puddle, shedding copious amounts of hair in the process, and finished up by leaving hair-enriched turds on top of it all’ with results included in the finished garment.  If I could give this a -10, I would, but the lowest the rating goes is 1 out of 10. But clearly you guys didn’t …

Making an 18th century man’s jacket: pattern and interfacing

Remember how I cut out and started an 18th century man’s jacket?  Well, I did, and it worked, and then I lost the sleeves, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I used as a pattern! So when I re-started a 1770s mans ensemble to go with the Lady Anne Darcy dress, I really had to re-start, and find a whole new pattern. This time I used the 1765-1790 man’s suit pattern from Colonial Williamsburg’s  Costume Close-Up: Clothing Construction and Pattern.  It’s based on this suit: The pattern is relatively simple: a front and back piece, two piece sleeves, cuffs, collar, pocket flaps, and some interfacing and padding. I found the interfacing and padding diagram particularly useful.  I used an old linen with a bit of staining for my interfacing, and a bit of flannel for the padding in the chest. I pinned my padding and the interfacing on and basted them down at the same time. A lot of padding wasn’t really necessary: Daniil has a great full chest, and the …