All posts tagged: 1910s

Gather Ye Rosebuds CoCo 2017 Gala Gown thedreamstress.com

Gather ye Rosebuds… a 1916 crinoline evening dress

And here it is! My 1916 crinoline revival evening dress: Officially, it’s been dubbed the ‘Gather ye Rosebuds’ dress – I felt I needed to make it before I was too old to get away with this look, it’s trimmed with roses, and there was lots of gathering (my gosh was there so much gathering. I gathered, and gathered, and gathered some more….). Unofficially….it’s the Jellyfish. I assembled all the pieces, put them together, put the dress on, looked at myself, and said “Oh dear, I’ve made a jellyfish!” I have mixed feelings about the Jellyfish. I really enjoyed wearing it. It was very bouncy, and I bounced a lot (lots of people took videos of me bouncing and spinning in it, but so far I’ve only seen one and I can’t figure out how to download it!). And I knew it was far from perfect so I didn’t feel the need to be precious about it. But…I know it’s far (so far…) from perfect. It started out really thought-out and precise and beautifully finished, …

A petticoat for a 1916 evening dress thedreamstress.com

A cheater super-full 1916 petticoat

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m making progress on my romantic historicism 1916 evening gown. The under-bodice is totally finished: My biggest concern about this gown was how to create a petticoat to support the width of the skirt. The bell-shaped silhouette of 1916 was so high fashion, and lasted for so short a time, that there are very few extent petticoats to use as a guide. There are lots and lots of examples of petticoats to create the more common A-line silhouette, but the bell-shape is harder to source. There is this wonderful petticoat from a 1917 issue the Paris Journal of Fashion, and it’s on my to-make list, but I think I’m going to need to try a couple of versions to get it right, and I couldn’t find the right fabric. I was getting a little frantic, and then I realised that the solution to the petticoat puzzle was right under my nose – in my UFO pile. I’ve had this 1950s petticoat schedule for a re-make for a while. The construction and finishing is beautiful, and …

Rate the Dress: Uber-lingerie frock by Lucile

Published by The Dreamstress

With an impressive score of 9.3, last week’s Russian evening/court gown on Nadezhda Polovtseva continued our run of well-received Rate the Dresses. It came up in the comments, so I thought I’d reassure you that I’m really not trying to pick garments that I’m sure you’ll like! My goal is always to choose something that I think it interesting and provides grounds for discussion, and (with a few exceptions) I can rarely predict how a garment will taken. So let’s find out how this one does… I’ve been looking at lots of 1910s evening gowns for the construction of my Costume College Gala gown, so this week’s Rate the Dress is on-theme, with a confection by the queen of 1910s romantic froth: Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon. This dress is the ultimate mid-1910s iteration of a lingerie gown: a delicate lace frock which uses techniques borrowed from lingerie construction, like lace insertion, hemstitching, faggoting, layers of texture showing through sheer veiling, and dainty ribbon trimming. The overall effect is etherial, fragile, and utterly feminine, with a …