An 1895 Godet Petticoat With Boning and Stiffened Frills: A Wired Hem, Godet Plait "Extenders", and Hair Cloth Frills

When last I wrote about this project in spring 2021, I had tried a whole series of hem stiffeners to create the desired flare at the bottom of the godet-cut petticoat, while still allowing the large godet plaits, or organ pleats, or funnels, whatever you want to call them, to do their luscious magic at the back.

By the way, if you want to read about the whole project, see my 1890s Costumes and Research page and look under 1895 Silk Godet Petticoat With Multiple Hem Stiffeners and Stiffened Frills header. 

Just as a reminder, here is a sample of what godet plaits look like on an exterior dress. These are wired. 

From All the Pretty Dresses
blog

As I have explained in a host of research posts (for which, again see the 1890s Costumes and Research page), such plaits were also popular features of petticoats, at least on the pattern sellers and women's advice literature side.

At the end of the testing process, I'd ended up choosing flat steel tape repurposed from a mini tape measure to insert into the hem. 

The tape was inserted between the hem and the hem facing and a line of stitching added just above the tape to hold it in position. A second row of steel tape was added a few inches above, but only running from the front through the sides of the petticoat, because it had a tendency to create a hoop-like effect if it reached all the way around. 

Here is a shot of the process and a few of the results.

I have inserted the tape into the petticoat and am in the process of pinning
it into position, prior to hand sewing a line of stitching above it
to serve as a channel. There is already an interfacing of mid- to heavyweight
milliners buckram inserted between facing fabric and hem facing.

More pinning, and an example of the lovely rounded godet plait created by the steel tape.

The completed pair of godet plaits in the back, with the second row
of tape measure flat steel tape set at the top of the hem facing section.
It too was run into the facing and sewn in place.

Oh look! Nutmeg wanted to help me. I think, though I am not certain, that she has climbed under a pillowcase that I would cut up later for the fabric.

Nutty Nutmeg

Facing Facts: I Had Used Too Light a Fabric For the Petticoat Body

It was at this point that it was becoming clear that the silk shantung, which has a bit of body, was not stiff enough on its own to form the godet plaits such that they would support a fashion fabric skirt on top of them without collapsing.

That is why we experiment: my initial goal was a summer-weight petticoat in the godet style. However, not knowing just how stable godet plaits were or were not, I started with a fairly lightweight fabric, ignoring the advice literature of the day which harped on the need for a fabric with oomph.

I do not have access to the moreen that the Ladies Home Journal recommended for the initial petticoat, and nor did I have the funds to purchase a heavy silk taffeta, another option. Yards of hair cloth, an even more expensive option recommended for entire petticoats, was also out of the question, especially since LHJ reported that many women found such petticoats hot to wear. Taffeta in summertime is hot enough as it is, so haircloth, with its goat hair or wool content, might be a sauna. Those of you who are familiar with this blog know that I live in Kentucky, USA, where it can be hot and humid in the summer, and northern girl that I am, heat and I are uneasy with each other.

At this point, I made a risky, time-consuming decision: I would line the entire petticoat with muslin to add body. So I did, by hand, and discovered another mistake. When cutting out the back section of the petticoat, I had cut it single, rather than on the fold, a truly stupid error that had caused hours of irritation when my godet plaits hadn't lain correctly. Knowing that period garments, even those made by dressmakers, are rife with errors and hasty decisions was no solace.

Why I did not abandon the original petticoat and start over with fresh fabric, perhaps in a rayon or cotton moire mid-weight home decor fabric to mimic moreen and taffeta, I don't know. Was it block-headed, obstinate unreasoning stubbornness? Continued worry about heat? No clue. It's nearly 12 months later and water so long under the bridge that it was blended with the Gulf of Mexico long ago.

Adding Wired Rings to Shape the Godet Plaits

So it was back to all that research done over the last months and years. I settled on adding two sets of oval rings to the interior of the godet plaits/flutes, one set at one-third the way down the petticoat, and the second just above the knee. You can read about them in full in the section called Little Godet Hoops: "Skirt Extenders" in a previous research post.

Here is a teaser picture.

Joyce Godsey of The Time Traveler's Sourcebook group on Facebook
posted an 1897 Delineator pattern for making them, number 1257.

Sizing each ring was by guess and by golly, looking at pictures of these whatsamajiggets and their relative size to the rest of the petticoat. The top set of rings are about 5" wide, and the lower set about 7".

Each ring consists of two wires, made from that springy measuring tape steel, encased and sewn into muslin. Unlike the Featherbone commercial originals, these are rather loving-hands-at-home, but they are light, and they worked to hold the flutes in position fairly well.

A length of the steel tape and a folded piece of closely woven muslin,
repurposed from a worn-out pillowcase.

Encasing the first piece of steel tape in the muslin.
There will be a total of two steel tapes, with space in between them.

Stitching a channel for the tape to inhabit.

Once two tapes are inserted, closing the ring and stitching it shut.
No, it's not pretty stitchery.

The ends of the steels poked out and had to be worked back
in before being sealed into the ring with muslin.

A pair of completed rings. Handsome they are not.
Of utility they are.

The rings were pinned into approximate position. As of this juncture, they are still just basted in. They really do help shape the pair of godet plaits, but as you can see, the hem bottom is still trying to collapse. I hoped that the addition of the planned hair cloth frilling would solve that problem by imparting some stiffness. Mmm, I can see that I am remembering out of order, too. The hoops went in before the second row of steel tape was added around the petticoat hem.

Aren't we getting flare and godets reminiscent of a real mid-1890s skirt?
Alas that this is not an outer skirt in itself!

 Demorest's Family Magazine, February 1895, p. 207.

Adding Two Rows of Hair Cloth Box-pleated Frills

The original LHJ petticoat was of moreen, set with three rows of box-pleated haircloth frills to create the requisite skirt flair, with no attempt at real godet plaits, other than the overall godet-style skirt cut, which was considered, to use a popular term of the day "regulation". You've seen this image a lot, but it bears repeating.

Petticoat with haircloth box pleatings.
Ladies Home Journal, July 1895, p.25.

Following Miss J. E. Davis in The Elements of Modern Dressmaking for the Amateur and Professional Dressmaker, (p. 139), I decided to encase my haircloth frills in the silk shantung, for a more handsome effect. I had enough hair cloth [mid-weight Hymo from Vogue Fabrics] to make two rows of frilling. 

Cutting the hair cloth on the bias, which is its best angle for strength, hand-sewing each length together, and then encasing them in silk by cutting wider pieces of silk, covering the front of the hair cloth strips and folding the edges behind and stitching them down on my Willcox and Gibbs 1911 chain stitch treadle machine, took far longer than it takes to read this overlong sentence.

Can't see the embedded video? Here is the link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9JDmgpOCM.

Nevertheless, at last it was done, all 24 yards. 

How to box-pleat it, though? The resulting fabric strips were seriously stiff. I ended up creating each box pleat by eye right at the Singer 27 hand crank machine, quite literally folding a pleat, sewing it slow single stitch by single stitch, then pleating its fellow and sewing that in turn. Rinse and repeat. It took many hours, but pre-pinning was out of the question as the pins were tough to insert into the layers of silk and hair cloth without bending them. 

Sewing the second half of a box pleat in place.

I kept moving the sewing machine around. It was taking so long
to stitch the pleats that I'd be driven off the breakfast room table
and have to move elsewhere. At this juncture I was on the living
room coffee table.

The resulting box-pleated strips were so pretty! You can see it coming, though. How to get them on to the base of the skirt, which now consisted of shantung in front, mid-weight interfacing in the middle, and a shantung facing in the back, all covered by a layer of muslin? That's four layers in itself, not counting the up to six layers in the pleated frilling. All the while avoiding the two rows of steel. Oh. My. Goodness.

It wasn't a problem of the needle going through the fabric...hand cranks and treadles are famous for making their way through sail cloth and leather, provided the needle is strong enough. No, it was how thick the resulting pleats were, being each composed of two layers of hair cloth and four layers of silk shantung. That's some Dagwood sandwich. There simply wasn't vertical space on the machines to safely and evenly run them under the needle with the added layers of the petticoat itself.

Nothing for it but to hand-sew them on to the base of the petticoat, the bottom one first, and then a second one over it, slightly overlapping the first, one painful stitch at a time, with a mid-size embroidery sharp.

I spent several days on that as time allowed, first on the floor and then, bum numb, on a chair. :)

Stitch, stitch, stitch.

It's no wonder I dreamed of digging into some buttercream 
cake decorations. Can you see the similarity, or is it just me?

To help grip the needle and lessen the chance of being stabbed, I wore
rubber fingertips bought from an upholsterer's supply house.
Were they partly steel-backed, I'd have been happier, as accidental
stabs still were a self-administered plague.

However, the results are gorgeous, scrumptious, like pure-butter buttercream icing on a wedding cake. Sculptural. Delicious. One of the prettiest effects I have ever obtained, bar none. And all this to be hidden as a petticoat and never seen except when I accidentally on purpose reveal an ankle and the accompanying frillies.

It's too bad the petticoat cannot be worn as an outer skirt, but it's a tad shorter than mid-1890s street length, as it should be, and it's very obviously pieced in front. Oh well, perhaps someday I will reclaim the frilling and put it on another, outer, skirt.

Also. I am positive you have noticed a problem.

Giving In: Adding Hair Cloth to the Back of the Petticoat...and More Hem Steel Tape

And so we come almost full circle. Despite all of the takes on period wires and boning and frills to create a back with enough oomph, my petticoat continues too weak to hold its flare in the front and sides.

Once the frilling was added, the carefully created two godet plaits in the back collapsed into a single flute, and the wiring in front collapsed as well.

The petticoat is not animated and taking a step forward. The rows of 
frilling are interfering with the two rows of steel tape underneath and setting the shape awry.

One giant godet plait, and all heck breaking out across the back.

Oh, bloody H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

I worried this would happen, and sure enough, it did. No wonder dressmakers inserted as many as five rows of wire or boning into their hems!

What now?

I will tell you what now. This project started in October 2019. It's now two years and multiple months later. There's no giving in. The project has become an effort to figure out the physics of the thing and to show the way to others. I will keep going. So far as I know, nobody else has yet spent so much effort in experimenting with these period methods, and while I am doing an approximation of experimental archaeology, might as well be fully thorough about it.

The next steps are to pull off the lining in back and insert a layer of the Hymo hair cloth, expense or not, then re-add the hoops, making new godet plaits. Then add more wire on front and sides. This time, encase in cotton tape and sew to the lining. It'll just have to be visible underneath.

Lessons Learned So Far

We know now that for a godet-style petticoat, the 1890s advice still stands:

• The foundation fabric must, by all means, have lots of body or the structure will collapse. Use as close to the original fabric as possible: all hair cloth, heavy taffeta, or as close to moreen as you can get. Or interline the back of the petticoat with haircloth and be prepared for a back-heavy petticoat that will need to hook to the corset or risk sliding down.
• The lighter the fabric, the more rows of steel tape or wire you will need. 
• Not so concerned with true godet plaits? Make the LHJ petticoat with a godet-cut pattern and gather the back and add the frills, and be done with it. The effect will be moderate, but LHJ was not targeted to fashionistas, but to more middle class women.

I leave you with a sign of spring from the Kentucky Bluegrass, which I wrote about long ago, when the boys were small. Amidst the new grass, the Spring Beauties have come, a Kentucky wildflower of grace and toughness combined. Outlasting the snow, they carpet lawns and medians wherever people value such signs of springtime over pesticides. Fortunately, in our old neighborhood, there are many people who do, and at the Ashland Estate, which has written about them, they grow in such profusion under centuries-old trees that they look like snow touched by Aurora's wings.

Claytonia virginica

The Magic of Bust Padding Improves the Fit of a Victorian Bodice

As some of you know, I made an 1870 day dress back in 2012-13 from Truly Victorian  patterns TV201 and TV400, with an overskirt drafted from a pattern given in Peterson's Magazine, January 1869, as well as the TV108 Grand Bustle. 

To date it is the only First Bustle era dress I've made, and while TV patterns are excellent and I had the help of two original mid-Victorian dresses then in my collection to use for construction assistance, I made some novice mistakes that haunted the dress so that on the Fit-O-Meter it never hit more than "meh...".

Now's the time to rectify the issues as much as I'm able. It has become the year of the refit anyhow, and I am still working out kinks with the 1895 wired and hairclothed petticoat.

The first fix: adding bust padding. Often called bust pads, the padding helps to smooth out the fit of a bodice and prevent the sudden dip or heavy horizontal wrinkling just above the bustline that can occur when wearing a corset, especially as a woman grows older. They're not augmenting the main body of the bust, but the space above and to the side of it. Added to a bodice, they often look like the first pads I added, below.

The bodice inside out, with bust pads, version 1, in the first position I had them.

How the Bodice Fitted Before the Pads

Look at the photo below. What do you notice about the bodice's fit?

Okay, besides the fact that the bottom hook and eye is left open. I was dashing to try it on. Did you notice that on your -- the viewer's -- left, that the bust fit is smooth while on the right there is a crease where the bust hits a hollowing of the upper chest above the corset? I am holding my arms in the same way on both sides, so it's not my position.

What caused the difference? The magic of bust pads, of course, or to be exact, the magic of one bust pad. The bodice was tried on to see if the pad I had just made worked, and yes, it did. After the photo, I was off to make the other so as not to appear lopsided.

The bodice used to fit even less well. Here it is the first time I wore the dress, in 2013:

Oh my, the poor bodice 
doesn't fit at all.

What happened? While the bodice was fitted over a toile, the issues were baked in from the get-go... If you look carefully, the tell-tale folds are there. 

Serious Christopher
wanted to be in the picture.

At that time I mentioned adding pads, but when the second fitting came around, I had forgotten about them, and also had the hubris to try the bodice on sans corset. Of course you're not going to see what's wrong when you're not wearing the proper undergarments...a rookie mistake.

I thought it fit then,
but no, it didn't.

So, main points so far:

• bust padding fills in weird hollows above the bust that occur with some women when they wear a corset;
• always do your fittings with the proper undergarments;
• if you can, write down the steps in making your bodice, so that you don't forget to do something -- like add padding -- in the heat of making.

Got that? Let's move on.

Making the Bust Pads, Version 1

Following directions in Elizabeth Stewart Clark's The Dressmaker's Guide: 1840-1865, I cut pieces of thinnish cotton batting in concentric pieces, laid them atop one another, and tacked them together. The pad is sized to fill in the hollow between the bust and my shoulder. Then I made a cover out of scraps of muslin, and slipped the pad into it. The shape is an elongated semi-circle because the pad stops at the armscye, but your shape may vary...it all depends on where the hollow of your chest is sitting and how big and deep it is.

Four-layer pad tacked together, next to the little cover that 
I've just stitched together with combination stitch.

The cover is turned right side out and the pad is slipped inside.

Then the cover is overcast closed.

Here is the pad laid on top of the bodice so you can see relatively where it will sit, from the bustline up towards the shoulder, and from almost the armscye inwards. The flat side will sit next to the wearer, while the gently mounded side will sit against the bodice to shape it.

Then I pinned it in place inside the bodice, tested it by putting on corset and bodice, tweaked the position a bit, and then tacked it in place, catching only the bodice lining with each stitch.

Here is the pad being overcast to the bodice lining
using large stitches.

Here is where we were after the first try-on with the new pads:

Well, the issue wasn't solved on one side. I clearly needed more padding, and you know, it needed to sit further out to the armscye and go further up towards the shoulder.

Why do I say that? You shall learn.

Bust Pads and Padding in 19th Century Dresses

Padding out the hollow of the bust was common in Victorian clothing. If you spend enough time on Etsy looking for antique bodices for sale, you are sure to spot examples of padding in photos of the interiors.

When I brought up the success of the padding on the Truly Victorian Pattern Sewists FB group, Felicity Rackstraw, a fellow member of that group, was truly kind and gave me her perspective as someone who collects antique clothing and who has worked in London's famous bespoke clothing district, Savile Row.

"Padding is a wonderful thing. I used to work for a Savile Row tailor..." she wrote. "At work, we habitually padded areas for clients. Fixing uneven shoulders, broadening shoulders, lifting sloping shoulders, smoothing out a hollow chest, smoothing out back curvature or scoliosis. It is no different to padded shorts now to lift or boost a flat booty, or a padded bra. Only the aesthetic has changed."

If you've had qualms about padding, the above should have dispelled them. They're normal.

She showed photos of a once-glorious late 1880s-to-early-1890s silk lavender jacket and explained, "I have extant garments with it, this is one... the maker has put the padding inside the lining on this one, you can just about see the wool padding where I have lifted the silk away from where it is shattered."

The wool padding tacked in place with creamy white thread
between the fashion fabric and the lining.
Image courtesy Felicity Rackstraw.

As she said, "the lavender jacket is padded from the shoulders down to the bust inside the lining; there are no pads added 'after the event', as it were." In this case, then, the wool padding was added during initial construction of the jacket, thus rendering the padding invisible inside. No one need know it was there.

Here is the jacket as a whole.

Jacket front. Image courtesy Felicity Rackstraw.

Padding peeping out. Image courtesy
Felicity Rackstraw.

She and I traded comments on the FB post, and later on Messenger. A specialist vintage reproduction dressmaker, she owns Esme's Vintage Closet in Stoke-on-Trent in England, and maintains a Facebook presence at https://www.facebook.com/esmesvintagecloset/. We had a delightful chat, and I am grateful for her insights.

Bust Padding, Version 2

I started over. This time I cut a pattern in paper that covered, like Felicity's bodice, from shoulder right out to the armscye. Then I cut scraps in batting and layered them. Whoopsie, I layered them such that the smaller pieces come inwards towards my bust, not outwards towards the fashion fabric. Backwards mounding. No matter, it ended up not making a difference.

Cutting the pattern.

Layering the padding. 

Not perfect yet. This time, I marked 
the wrinkle with pins. The
rest of the padding looked a little
much up near the shoulder. 

Aha!  See the pins I am pointing towards?
The wrinkle is below the padding!

Well. I had set my test padding too far up. Remember what Felicity Rackstraw said about adding padding where it was needed? I had added too much as well as misplaced it.

The patterning and pad-building was repeated.

This time, as you can see,
The padding runs into the armscye,
but doesn't climb all the way to the
shoulder. 

Here is the final effect, below. 

The bodice fits smoothly at last!

The padding worked -- perhaps even too well. The bodice fits much more smoothly now. I might take a layer of padding out in the section up towards the shoulder and not close to the armscye where it might be a tad too much. In any case, am very pleased to have learned the technique. 

By the way, you can see that the removable fichu-collar that's tacked to the dres consists of two sides that pin together at bottom with a bow to cover the join. Here, the bow has not been put on.

I am hopeful that you found the above helpful. Once again, let's review:

• Mark the position of the wrinkles in your bodice from the outside.
• Match the positioning of your padding to where the wrinkles are, and shape it accordingly. The padding certainly doesn't have to be round. Shape it to add smoothness where it's needed.
• Pin in place and test as needed. Your first go may not be the last one.

Other Tweaks to the Dress

The dress still needs work, I think. Here are pictures from Hallowe'en and from the last few days.

The bodice has a horizontal wrinkle across the back and there is wrinkling below the bust in front. Usually that means it might be a little too long. In this case, I think it's because the bodice has hiked up a little; it has done that each time I have worn it. The solution? I will add boning in the seams and add large, heavy hooks and eyes that attach the bodice and the skirt together. Combined, the bodice should stay where I want it. If that doesn't work, by golly I will add a waist stay inside that hooks closed, tightly.

The side view makes me wonder about the sleeves. Are they a bit full? Coat sleeves were meant to be loose, but this loose? Research is in order. 

The overskirt pouf is governed by how tightly three sets of thin silk ribbons are tied. Let's tighten the ribbons and raise the tripartite pouf higher.

The Halloween costume.

The hat is delightful. It's an equine dressage hat, a gorgeous vintage thing. The plume is meant to be outre for Halloween. 

In the front, I wish there was less wrinkling in the overskirt "wings" at the top of the overskirt. Memo: investigate what's causing it. Might I need to add another flounce to the petticoat, this one ending only partway down to fill things out? Am already wearing the grand bustle with back flounces and a petticoat made with a large flounce all the way around.

Finally, the unrelieved black of the trim has long bothered me. Perhaps I should make a bias band of the fashion fabric and work it in. Right now the puffing and the flounce are covered with black bias bands.

So there we are. Returning when all this is done; that may be after the holidays. Meantime, all safety and health to you and wishing peace to all. For those in the U.S., happy Thanksgiving.