A Real, Extant 1790s Cloak

My cloak.

Remember that hugely long voile cloak I made for this past summer's Jane Austen Festival? The kind that's pictured over and over and over in 1790s fashion plates?

I've located an extant example. They seem incredibly rare, perhaps because they were so long that they were easily stepped on or otherwise damaged and also easily reused for other items once they went out of fashion.

Diane Thalmann, dealer in English and French antique textiles, http://www.antique-textiles.net, sold a netted one dated 1790-1795. It's looooooonnnnngggg: 120 inches by 21 inches. Heavens.

Example of cloaks: left one is white,
right one is black. From Gallery of Fashion

As she described it: "This rare hand netted long scarf or stole would have been worn round the neck, crossed over under the bust and tied at the back.... Alternatively, it would have simply been placed round the neck and allowed to hang down – nearly to the ground. I have never had such a stole/scarf, and because they were of fine muslin, lace or netting are almost impossible to find, even in fair condition." See http://www.antique-textiles.net/shawls/1790-1795-white_long_scarf.html.

Netted Cloak, Diane Thalmann

Do have a look at this item, and her other shawls and textiles. I guarantee you will learn a great deal and if you are in funds, you might find a bona fide treasure.

Tutorial: Whipped Gathering a Frill or Ruffle; Plus a Bit on Hemming the 1790s Cloak

Here's more information on the hand whip-gathered frill or ruffle that edges the 1790s cloak that I'm currently making, plus a little on the hemming made by my antique Willcox and Gibbs machine. This cloak contains both hand and machine work. 

Whipped-Gathering a Frill or Ruffle: A Tutorial

Anywhoo, here are the steps to make a narrow whipped gather for a frill or ruffle on a cap or a cloak, a dress or similar 18th century or early 19th century article. When I first tried them, the results were not good. It took a good bit of experimentation with ways of holding my hands, of treating the fabric, of stretching the fabric, and so on, to make it work. The pictures you see below actually date to the wrap-front dress work and are not as narrow as I have achieved since...and by the way, my results vary; if you're in practice you can really move and achieve a very, very fine result with your whipped gathers.

If your results aren't as narrow as you like, keep reminding yourself that it could take several garments before you achieve a pencil-point-fine effect. If you happen to see minute, super-fine work on an original garment, do remember that today's easily available fabrics are made with thicker threads and the threads we tend to use to sew with are thicker, too. Even today's lace-making thread is thicker than what used to be made.

Start with the length of fabric you plan to create a frill or ruffle out of. Usually it will be quite narrow, only an inch or two wide. Have your sewing thread, a sharp needle, and your thread snips ready.

Step 1

Measure out an arm's length of thread and snip it. Knot the thread securely in the fabric at one one end on the raw edge, taking a backstitch in it too, so it cannot come out. If you don't and the thread comes out, there goes your work...

Attach the piece of fabric some foot or two away from you to a sewing bird or other holder. In these pictures I have pinned the fabric to the top of my sewing box. To work accurately and speedily, you need tension on the fabric; it can't be all loose and floppy. You could pin the work to your knee, running the pin through your skirt/dress/slacks/jeans, but then you have to move it frequently enough to be a bother. I tend to set the length of fabric so that it runs vertically, rather than to the left or the right. For some reason this is faster for more; your mileage may vary :)

Step 2

Using your thumb and forefinger or middle finger, rub the raw edge of the fabric such that the raw edge rolls up tightly inside the fabric. You want this little roll as tight as possible, for the tighter, the finer the result, the more it will be like what was done back in the day.

Maintain tension on the fabric as you do this, or the roll will not be even.

If you gently move your entire hand upwards as you roll, you can keep rolling along until you have a foot or more ready to gather.

Tip: your thumb remains steady; it's your index finger or middle finger that does the rubbing motion.

If the fabric seems not to want to roll, try wetting your finger a little. Lightly starching the raw edge before you begin work can help, too.

I have looked at a video or two online of the process and those show more of a folding action than a rolling one, resulting in a much wider hem.

Slowly rubbing the fabric, which I have starched,
into a narrow roll.

Step 3

Whip-stitch the rolled fabric: but with a trick: insert the needle on an angle into the fabric each time you make a stitch, so that the thread whips up the little roll of fabric in a spiral.  This will help the gathering process.

The more stitches per inch, the finer the result.

Maintain tension on the fabric so that you can work speedily and not have to reposition the fabric, and maintain the same needle angle all the way.

Every so often, extend the thread to its length, and run the needle up it, letting the end of the thread fly, to take out extra twist in it. Otherwise, the thread is apt to tangle and it will drive you nuts. This is a tip from Frances Grimble's The Lady's Strategem.

This photo shows me maintaining tension on the
strip of fabric with my right hand while I insert
the needle on an upwards angle to start a
whip stitch. See the little bumps on the outer
edge of the whipped edge beneath my thumb?
Each of those lies between a stitch, so that 
you see the stitches are set closely.

Step 4

After a couple of inches of whipping, hold the the little whipped edge with one hand, and gently pull on the thread with the other. It's easier to pull the thread away from you than toward you: you want the thread to slide easily. The rolled and whip-stitched edge will pull into gathers and your frill/ruffle will take shape before your eyes.

To keep the gathers from flattening out again, immediately press the last stitch made between thumb and forefinger, and sew a half knot or two to hold that section. That locks the frilled section. Then you can arrange the gathers at will in the space left. Note that when you attach your ruffle or frill to whatever garment it is you're making, you'll make several stitches per inch, which will lock the frill in general into place.

You do not have to put that half knot in there, but know that your gathers will move all over the place in the meantime.

You should practice this portion of the process several times, to see how full or scant you want your frill. Just as in regular gathering, the tighter you pull the thread, the fuller the gather, and the looser you leave it, the scanter.

To my eye, gathers on things like caps were often quite scant.

More rolling of the fabric.

So there you go. I find this work relaxing, rapid for hand-sewing, and after a while can get a very fine edge. If you look at the picture above, you see that the rolled fabric at the top of my hands is larger than beneath. You will need to check yourself every so often to make sure you have consistent results.

What are the results like? Here are some examples from my costumes. First, the 1790s cloak.

Next, the hem of my wrap-front dress.

Hemming the Cloak
Second, the main body of the cloak is hemmed with a 1/8" hem, and the edges of the frill are hemmed the same way. The simplest way to do this is with a hemming attachment. I have a Willcox and Gibbs 1911 chain stitch treadle sewing machine that makes a magnificent hem, as well as the same model, an electric version, on long-term loan from my friend Miss Johnny. Here is a shot of Johnny's machine working on miles of flouncing several years ago:

Here is the little hemmer that makes it possible:

Here is the machine at work on a straight seam, several years ago:

I have no pictures yet of the process of whipping the resulting frill to the main cloak...it has its own little issues, naturally. Sewing always does.

"C" is for Cloak and "F" Is for Frill and Both Are...

"Still Life with Sewing Box", this vignette might be called, that is,
if it didn't include the snaky, too realistic view
of the electrical cord behind the table.

..."D", for Delightful.

The swirling frill spilling out of my sewing box will belong before too long to what was known in the mid-1790s as a cloak and perhaps also as a mantle. (I swannee I saw that name recently and now cannot locate the original occurrence.)

This is not your standard red Regency-era cloak, worn as a practical garment, whether lavishly trimmed or plain red wool.

No, this handsome accessory or outergarment set off women's morning dress for a few years, until it was eclipsed by the more practical, exotic, and more expensive (at least if imported from the Middle East) shawl.

December 1794 Gallery of Fashion

Cloaks were worn winter and summer, and were often layered with other items. In the December, 1794 GOF plate shown here, the lady on the left is wearing a "[d]ouble handkerchief crossed and tied behind. White muslin cloak, trimmed with the same. Blue fox fur tippet." I believe the handkerchief is within the dress, then the cloak with the frill -- muslin can't have been warm -- and the tippet, hardly big enough to warm one's neck, much less neck and chest. That red tail she's holding? That's a tail from her exceptionally wide sash. The lady on the right is similarly layered: "[l]arge white double handkerchief, and a yellow silk handkerchief over it. Black silk cloak, trimmed with lace."

Cloaks were often white, though Gallery of Fashion shows them sometimes in black, as above, and of muslin or silk or satin, in which fabric a frill is often sewn. Sometimes the frill was replaced by lace or even fur. Frills along all edges appear to be very popular in the magazine, and are usually narrow, although you can occasionally spot deep lace-hemmed ones, and sometimes lace, being expensive because entirely handmade at this period, trims just the ends and the long edges are bare, or just a portion plus the ends are trimmed. I have not seen any illustrations of cloaks edged with ribbon or ruching, although that doesn't mean that didn't happen. Cloaks could also be of other construction. The image above from September shows a lady walking in "[b]lack silk netted cloak, trimmed with a full plaiting of lace".

Cloaks appear normally as accompaniments to Undress. They appear at breakfast and on walks. I do not see them paired with more formal wear. This makes sense, for cloaks were frilly, and would not have matched in tone the flowing robes or fringed petticoats and long swansdown tippets of that style of dress.

September 1794 Gallery of Fashion: netted silk cloak.
Oh, for a walk like that one! I miss water.

They were usually worn as described in the September issue: "drawn and tied in the front, the two ends hanging down very low". They could also be tied together with a bit of ribbon, flutter upon flutter.

Cruikshank draws the ladies: is that a cloak on the right?
See the Lewis Walpole Library collection, Call Number:800.03.18.01

So far, I have only found one extant item that even remotely can be described as a cloak. It's from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is dated as late as 1790, and is written down as a muslin "fichu". The dimensions, however, are more of a longish mantle: 75"x10", and it is frilled at the edge. Perhaps it's the precursor to the mid-1790s mantles, for I can see it wrapped round the shoulders, crossed in front, and tied behind. It's just an imaginative hop until you have the same thing, longer like the extra-long sashes of the mid-1790s, now wrapped around the shoulders, but tied in front and left to hang.

Beyond scanning for these items in GOF and Luxus und der Moden, and a brief look into the fantastic Lewis Walpole Library's digital collection, I haven't done much research on these items...no looking into texts, for instance, or really trying hard to try to track extants down. After all it's summertime and the brain is easily overheated. It's the season for greenery and romance, not Mrs. Ernestine and her books.


Yes, that's the right word, romance: I find these silly cloaks nearly the ultimate in romance, and quite contemporary, really, in this year of ruches and frills and flirts. Their chief purpose seems to add another element of flow and flutter and length to an ensemble. They emphasize the vertical, and thus impart, one hopes, a willowy, sylph-like effect to the wearer.

Construction

The LACMA example's frill appears to be rolled to a selvage edge. If the mantle is 10"wide, it could easily have been woven on a narrow loom, like a very wide sash or ribbon might be. Thus, finishing would be far easier.

I haven't access to such a narrow-woven item, although a lucky duck might conceivably find a 75" scarf to add a frill too, especially of Indian cotton. Although 75" doesn't win you that delicious length. One indeed might check Dharma Trading and looking at their long scarves. Hmmm, should have thought of that. A really lucky person might have access to a white stole from India
.
However, this one is my own work It's of two 50"-ish lengths of 10" wide silk-cotton voile from the stash (and originally bought from Thai Silks, over a year ago), sewn together, for I didn't have 100" handy in one length. The frill is self fabric. Each evening before bedtime I roll-hem some of the frill and whip it to my base mantle. Just a bit of quiet busywork to slow the pulse before sleep.

As you can tell, then, this version is a hybrid of machine work and handwork. The Willcox and Gibbs narrow hemmer was used to hem the mantle itself, as well as the frill. However, a machine-gathered frill simply won't work, for there is always a header produced, unless someone has invented a roll-gathering attachment. A header will mean an extra layer must be sewn to the mantle hem, stiffening it and interfering with the flutter effect. If one folds the header down to hide it, the hem area becomes even stiffer.

What to do? The only way I can see thus far to make this garment do what it is designed to do is to roll-gather the frill and whip it to the hem, just as was done for caps and other fine muslin or lace garments. That means the entire garment is but one layer of fabric deep, and the result can flutter and flap delicately at will.

I am not being overnice in either the roll-gathering or the whipping, and so the handwork is not be as good as either the LACMA piece or my recently finished dress with the whipped frill. These scarf-like items get such rough use: tossed over the shoulders, they end up draped on chair backs, they fall off, they are stepped upon, are handled over and over, are even forgotten and left. I'd rather a bit of roughness for this item and no worries, than a perfect accessory that I fear to take out and use in modern living.

For once it's done, I hope to wear it for a long time to come, not only as a period item, but as a fun accessory for summer evenings.