Renovating My Sheer 1795 Morning Dress: The Grand Try-On

It's almost an anticlimax, presenting this dress' Grand Try-On, yet here it is. It's...wearable. The ribbons for the sleeves and waist have yet to arrive in the mail, and  -- for Pete Squeaks! -- the missing length of frill is in the side of the front that shows! Guess what I will be doing in the airport later this week, as I make a work trip :} That frill must be done by Saturday, or bust.

As always, please click on the images to see them full size.

Here's a goofy picture of Cinderella soulfully attired in her kitchen. Note the missing piece of frill at the hem, and the experimental, and not successful sleeve ties, one thick and one thin, and the missing waist tie and general air of not being ready yet for the ball.

Let's compare the bodice with the reference image, for that was where the real initial issues were.

• Placement high on shoulder, check.
• Enough wrinkles in the sleeves? No. Need to scrunch them the old fashioned way, with water and rubber bands. I had starched the sleeves to work with them, so they are rather stiff in the image. They are heavily gathered at the sleeve heads, so should do fine.
• Neckline gathers? Almost...I need to arrange the fabric a bit more.
• Tightness across most of rest of bust? Check.
• Waistline treatment...can't figure out how a wrapfront would fold back in an arrow shape like that. Will play.
• Lace at neckline? Working on it.

Still, the bodice and waist fit and look pretty well for a Try-On. The neckline did what I wanted it to do, the hems are airy.

The only thing I am not pleased with is the sleeves. The sleeve ends are too wide. See a typical treatment in fashion plate below. I may gather them almost at the end with a thread, leaving a tiny frill, later to be trimmed just as the neckline is.

Here is the back. At the center back, where the fabric is very, very heavily stroke gathered, the fabric boufs out just enough on its own that I may not need a bumpad of any sort.

The back is a little wrinkled, for I put it on in a hurry, it being almost time for bed.

There's the minute train. Gowns of this era were usually trained, and I went with a minimal one, for this dress is meant mostly for daytime and gardens.

The try-on also exposed, let us say, another issue. On the advice of Jenni over at Living with Jane, I mounted dorset buttons (thanks, Jenni!) on to the stays, and set loops on the petticoat, and hung it from the stays well above waist level. This is something we hear of occasionally as an early solution to the high dress waist and the former natural waistline position of the petticoat.

However, I did not mount the buttons high enough, for the blue embroidery on my stays is showing through. Yarghhh. Another task before Saturday...

A Question about Sleeve Ties

Silly sleeve detail.

A question for those of you who have made Chemise dresses. Gallery of Fashion says that the sleeve bands are "tied" on (June, 1794). The same term recurs in Luxus und der Moden. Yet you can never, ever, see the ties in the fashion plates or in portraits, in front or back views! Are they just tiny tight bows to the inside of the elbow? Here's a typical example below. I'd do a comprehensive search of costumer sites, but am almost out of time and will not have computer access Thursday and Friday. HELP!

There is still a lot to do before I wear the dress to a picnic Saturday. That frill, an interim sleeve and waist solution, cutting a plain handkerchief from transparent silk gauze, and so on. I will not be posting, therefore, until after the picnic.

So here, as a parting gift, Zepherine Drouhin roses exhaling a soft, silky, gentle damask scent. I caught their image yesterday out back. My favorite old-rose variety.