All posts tagged: menswear

The 18th century man’s jacket: finishing details

With all the patterning, construction and fitting of the 18th century jacket done, I could now do the finishing touches. Or more accurately, I could send out a panicked call to a few friends who owed me favours, and get them to do a bunch of the finishing touches for me. This was the week before the Grandeur & Frivolity talk, and I was a just a little overwhelmed and busy. I sewed the neckband on myself, and did all the buttonholes too. They are machine done for now, but I will probably do them over by hand at some point. You’ll notice that they aren’t actually opened: this seems to be the case on most 18th century jackets (at least for all but the top few buttonholes). Darling Shell sewed on all the buttons. She didn’t hide the threads between the layers as I probably would have done, but I’m not sure which is historical. Anyone seen a actual 18th c jacket and how the buttons were sewn on? And am I the only …

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, …

Grandeur & Frivolity – the 1770s suit

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m pretty happy with my 1770’s man’s suit, especially as it is my first real go at 18th century menswear, but I do still want to make some tweaks to it. Even so, I was quite pleased with how it looked at the Grandeur & Frivolity talk. The model certainly helped: Daniil carried off sky blue satin, wig, stockings and bows with all the poise and hauteur of a proper French courtier. The duchesse silk satin creased something awful from being sat on. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Would 18th century silks crease like that? Daniil and Chiara are good friends, so we got them to pose together after the talk. The outfits may be over 100 years apart, but they sure look gorgeous together!