All posts tagged: 1780s

Overdress of a robe à l’anglaise, Chintz: painted and resist-dyed cotton tabby, English dress made of Indian export chint, c.1780, Royal Ontario Museum, 972.202.12

Rate the Dress: Rosy pink Robe a la….

I’m going to try to keep up a regular blogging schedule again This week’s dress is a floral bedecked pink frock that’s an excellent example of transitional styles in the last quarter of the 18th century, and is also an illustration of British colonialism in that period. Rate how it looks, but think about the circumstances that made it possible. Last Week and-then-some: a mid 1860s dress in green Good: green. Bad: mis-matched green (quite possibly not the dress’s fault: the tabs may have been a perfect match to begin with). Good: silhouette. Maybe: Those tabs. The dress would be too boring without them, but you couldn’t really call them good. Bad: No trim on the back of the dress The Total: 7 out of 10 It was a dress to be OK with, but not to love. This week: a 1780s dress in Indian chintz I think this 1780s Anglaise (more on that later) is such an interesting dress, because it shows how cuts and definitions of different types of garments blend and become hazy …

A red silk 1780s petticoat thedreamstress.com

A red silk 1780s petticoat

I made a thing! Right now my life is a sea of toiles for the next Scroop + Virgil’s pattern, and it seems like I will never get to sew anything that isn’t calico (that’s muslin for those in the US). So it’s doubly exciting to have taken a little time to make something not-toile, and in such scrumptious fabric too. I have some 1780s sewing (to go over the Scroop & Virgil’s Augusta Stays of course!) planned for this year, and I looked at all my fabrics, and realised that what they all had in common was that they would look great with a red petticoat. I had no suitable red in stash, but when I was shopping for fabrics for the Robin Dress samples I let myself linger in The Fabric Stores silk section (always a dangerous activity) and they had an amazing silk-cotton faille in bright red. I wanted a dark red, but the fabric was so scrumptious, and such a perfect match to the weight and hand of one of the …

A late 18th c bum rump

In my continued effort to not have this blog turn into one of those sites where the blogger starts a pattern line and never talks about anything but her patterns ever again, I present my latest totally-not-Scroop-related* historical sewing make: A 1780s bum rump! To make my bum rump I referred to: The tutorial in The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking; plus Demode’s excellent post exploring late 18th century skirt supports; plus Extant images and mentions The American Duchess book has a great tutorial on making a 1780s bum rump, and I used it as my starting point. However, I have noticed it makes a slightly ‘corner-y’ bum, that pokes out in a square at the sides. It still looks amazing under anything with a full skirt, like an ‘Italian’ gown or a polonaise, but not so good if worn with a little jacket. To see if I could make a less poke-y shape, I consulted Kendra’s great blog post, which has been the inspiration for most of my 18th c skirt support …