A Tutorial: Sense and Sensibility Bodiced Petticoat - Part 4

This is the fourth part of a multi-part tutorial about making a bodiced petticoat using the bodice portion of the basic Sense and Sensibility Regency dress pattern. The tips are designed to supplement Jennie Chancey's online directions for a bodiced petticoat. If you missed the first sections, you can read parts 1, 2, and 3 here.


As always, please click on each image for a larger version.

In this post, we assemble the bodice. Please refer to Jennie's directions for this portion of the project, under the header "Making the Final Bodice".

Photo: My sewing corner in the guest room. These days little Christopher has my old sewing room for his bedroom, so I do my work mostly here. It may be hard on the knees after awhile, but it works :}

Adding the Neckline Drawstring Casing and Drawstrings

Our next task was to add the drawstring casing and drawstrings to the neckline of the bodice lining. It is sewn to the right side of the fabric, the side that will be next to the body. If we sewed it to the side with the bones in it, when finished the casing would be inside the garment where we couldn't use it :} We used the same Wright's single-fold bias tape for the casing that Jennie Chancey recommended.

We constructed it as Jennie recommended. Her directions are quite clear, so I will not repeat them here. (Again, these directions are a supplement to hers, not a replacement for them.)

The only tip I offer is to baste the drawstring casing to the bodice before stitching it down. Since it will be against your skin, you want to apply it very flat, without creases or bumps.

Here is a photo of the casing of drawstring casing after being applied and sewn:

Then we threaded the drawstrings through the casing. We cut two pieces of poly ribbon, one for each side of the front of the bodice, making each ribbon long enough to not only thread through its portion of casing, but to tie at center front, and to stick out a wee bit at the shoulder edge so it can be sewn into the shoulder seam.

We used poly ribbon for the drawstring simply because that is what we had. I have often thought that it would make good sense to use 1/8" wide linen twill tape, since that is not slippery and will hold better when the garment is gathered.

Also, Fitting and Proper (Sharon Burnston) has documented a shift (dating anywhere from 1790 to 1810) that closes with a very narrow 3/16" hem instead of a casing, and that is threaded not with ribbon, but with heavy linen thread. (pp. 44-46). Next time I would be tempted to do the same, because the hem and string would be far less bulky than what we have here.

Let us forge on.
Assembling the Bodice Pieces: Lining

At last we were ready to assemble the pieces of the bodice together. Remember that we have pieces for both lining and for the exterior, "fashion fabric" side that shows when the petticoat is worn. Each side will be constructed separately. We started by constructing the lining.

First, we sewed one back piece to its side back piece, and then the other back piece to its back piece. Remember how tricky it was to work with this curved seam when we fit the toile? Well, here we go again. Please refer to part 1 of this tutorial if you need a refresher.

Here is a photo of the pinning in process:

Next, here is where I freely admit I goofed. I sewed the side back pieces next to the fronts...so that I had all the pieces of the lining sewn together. Bad idea. If you do this it becomes very hard to deal with the shoulder straps.

At this point, this is what I had, below. You are viewing it from the right side of the lining...the side that will be next to your skin. Please click on the image to read my warning notes again in blue text :}

The step we should have taken next was to sew the shoulder pieces together. Here are the seams for one shoulder of the bodice below, pinned.

Then sewn (on my handcrank Singer machine). Notice the end of the drawstring sticking out from the allowances. When sewing the shoulder seams, we wanted to make sure that each drawstring was securely sewn into each seam.

Now we had the bodice lining pieces assembled, and we set them aside to await a later step.

Assembling the Bodice Pieces: the Outer Bodice

Now it was time to follow the same process for the outer bodice pieces...the fashion fabric pieces that would show when the bodice is worn.

Completing the Bodice Assemblage

It was late in the evening when I put together the bodice for Polly, and I rather felt like I had been working on this project forever, which was, with a stretch of imagination, true. We had begun back in the fall, but holidays intervened, and then research. Perhaps at this point you're feeling a little bodice-bored yourself. Persevere, I say!

Affixing Lining to Outer Bodice

It was now time to affix the lining to the outer bodice.

Per Jennie's directions, I laid the bodice lining down flat, right side facing up. Then I laid the outer bodice atop it, right side down. Now the right sides were together.

I commenced to pinning the lining to the outer bodice at the neckline, all the way from the center back one side to center front, then again on the other side, from center back to center front.

In the photo below you see once side pinned.

Notice how there are more pins at the curves than there are on the straight stretches. These extra pins will help hold the pieces in the proper position, with less likelihood of puckering, when they are sewn together. Sewing machines are more apt to have this issue than handsewn pieces, but it's best to be safe, unless you are an accomplished seamstress.

Jennie's directions require you to sew a 5/8-inch seam at the center back edge, narrowing down to 1/8 inch at the beginning of the front neckline, that is, at the shoulder seams. Or that's at least how I understood it.

In order to create a nice, smooth transition from 5/8" to 1/8", I used the principle of halving:

• At the center back edge I marked, in pencil, 5/8 inch from the raw neckline edge.
• At the shoulder seam I made a second mark, 1/8 inch away from the raw neckline edge.
• Then I found the center of the space in between the two marks, and measured a little more than 3/8 in from the edge.
• Now I had two sections.
• I found the center of the section closest to the center back, and measured approximately a quarter inch (2/8") from the edge. Then I eyeballed further marks, to create a smooth transition.
• I did the same for the other side.
• I made plenty of marks. Unless you're really sure of yourself, it's really easy to let your line of stitching wander...it's good to have marks to sew by. This is especially true of handstitching, because you cannot see as far ahead of you as you can on a machine. Trust me on this. 

The photos below capture the process.

Then I sewed the neckline edge, being careful not to sew over that drawstring ribbon at any point. You can sew in one operation like Jennie did, or sew from center back to center front, then stop and sew from center back to center front on the other side. Because I do not like to have so many pins sitting around, I did the latter.

Jennie writes: "When you reach the "neckline,"just stich a scant 1/8" away from the top edge. When you get to the bodice front, you'll be stitching right on top of the stitches you made when you sewed the drawstring casing on."

Sewing the Armscyes

Remember how, like a dork, I had sewn up the side seams under the armscyes? Well, now that's where that mistake began to show itself. That is because the next step is to sew around the armsyce. If the side seam is sewn, as in the leftmost portion of the image below, how do you easily turn the shoulder straps right side out?  Jennie explains that her method is a simple way to deal with shoulder straps and sleeveless garments, and she's right. Once I figured out how it worked, I realized how nice a method it is.

So, as you can see in the rightmost portion of the image below, I have ripped out the side seam. Now that side of the bodice is only attached at the shoulder seams.

So, our step is to stitch all the way around the armscye...around the U shape, if you will.
  

Here is the seam, sewn.

You will want to clip the seam allowances at the curves a little bit so that the resulting shoulder strap, when turned right side out, will lay well.

Turning the Shoulder Straps Right Side Out

Now for a bit of work I never enjoy much: turning the shoulder straps right side out. Because the space is so narrow, and the enter bodice must go through that narrow channel (!), it's helpful to have a bodkin or the end of a wooden spoon to help pull and push the fabric through.

In the image below, I have started to pull back the fabric on one side of the bodice. I will keep going, turning the fabric right side out.

As here:

And here, where we are at the narrowest part of the process.

Here is what we ended up with, below, when both armscyes were sewn and turned right side out. As you can see, both side seams beneath the armscyes are open. It's these seams that we will close up next.

Sewing Up the Side Seams

Lay the bodice out flat, right side out. Under one armscye, where the seam is open, turn the fabric that's lying on top inside out, per the below.

In the image below I am turning up one side again for the camera, while the other side is already turned up.

Here below both sides are pulled out. What we could have done was to match the top halves of the side seams, and sew them, then match the bottom halves of the side seams and sew them.

However, it is easier to match both top and bottom, making sure that the seam you see in the middle (image below) matches at the horizontal seam at the center.

Here below I am pulled the fabric together to form a seam.

Then I pinned the seam together. I started at that middle seam, pinned the fabric together there, set another pin at the left outer edge, and then, using the principle of halves again, pinned in the middle to make two sections, pinned in the middle of those to make now four sections, and so on. This method of pinning ensured that if one side was a wee longer than the other, that the extra length would get eased gently in, without puckers or skewing the final seam.

Below you see the pinning process started.

Then I used the same pinning process for the right half of the seam, from the middle seam out to the right edge.
Voila: completed seam! See Jennie's photo for an example.

Next Steps

Now the bodice was all sewn up, except for the back seam. Next steps are to have Polly try the bodice on one last time, and to make up the skirt and waistband and complete the petticoat at last.

1790s Fashion: Sources for Extant Garments You May Not Have Thought Of

As I have learned in the last months, fashion during the 1790s was much more varied than it had been earlier in the century and in a way, more varied than what we would see later in the Regency. Earlier fashion staples co-existed with newer garment types, and hybridized rather like bunnies...frequently and in profusion.

Most costumers by this time are familiar with Demode's Real Women's Clothing, 1600-1919, which links visitors directly to extant garments in museum collections in America and Europe.

Photo: Screen shot of a late eighteenth century portrait ring from The Three Graces.

Alert costumers will also browse Ebay and well-known textiles dealers' sites. A couple of favorites for this era include:

• Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery
• Contentment Farm
• Cora Ginsberg LLC
• Karen Augusta
• The Three Graces (fine Georgian jewelry)
• Trousseau
• Vintage Textile

I see references to most of these pop up repeatedly on costuming sites, with the exception of Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery, The Three Graces, and Cora Ginsberg. Those are under-utilized and really, you should have a look. Cora Ginsberg's catalogs are just as important as her listings, and frequently contain useful background information.

There are other types of sources, however, that I rarely see references to, or that are new.

Major Auction House Catalogs and Results Pages

Charles A. Whitaker Auction Company
They have handled some famous collections in the past, such as the Tasha Tudor collection. I find their site hard to use.

Christie's: Fine Art Auctions
A literal treasure trove. Their paper catalogs have graced coffee tables and reference shelves for decades. Now their online auction results pages can serve the same function. Choose the Auction Results link towards the top of the homepage. Then browse month by month to look for auctions having to do with textiles and costume. It's slow work but will reveal marvels for this decade. As with many museum entries, sometimes I have quibbles with the dating of items, but less here than on some museum sites.

The Dorotheum
In Vienna. I have not seen costumes among their offerings, but their jewelry is phenomenal, and of course the paintings and drawings. I visited the auction house back in 2001 and it was an overwhelming, Aladdin's Cave experience. Wien, I miss you.

Kerry Taylor Auctions
This company handles most of Sotheby's offerings. It is not particularly easy to browse, and sometimes you have to go to a related site to see listings, but it's still worth the effort.

Bonham's
It's less easy to find items, but if you use the search box in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage, and enter "costume" or "dress" or "fashion", you can come up with items. Once you find an item to suit, click the sale number link at the top left of the item description screen to see the other lots sold in the same sale. Since sales often consist of similar items, this is a decent way to find sales consisting of multiple items of interest.

William Doyle Galleries
I haven't looked here much yet, but plan to do so in future.

Europeana: A New Way to Browse European Museum Holdings

Bjarne Drews pointed out this resource in the last month or so and I have used it several times. It's a portal to the holdings of several European museums. I find it best to find an item and then click the link to the actual museum's page, and then I browse their other holdings. Since I can read French and German decently, browsing isn't too bad, but you might find using Google's translator function helpful.

Photo: typical example of costume found using the Europeana portal.

To get started, type in "costume" in the search field...and you will get drawings and paintings and fashion plates and some costumes in the results screen...

In Closing

Have fun dropping down the rabbit hole, and see you in a few years...

A Tutorial: Sense and Sensibility Bodiced Petticoat - Part 3

This is the third part of a multi-part tutorial about making a bodiced petticoat using the bodice portion of the basic Sense and Sensibility Regency dress pattern. The tips are designed to supplement Jennie Chancey's online directions for a bodiced petticoat. If you missed the first part, you can read Parts 1 and 2.

As always, please click on each image for a larger version.

In this post, we cut out the final bodice pieces and bone the bodice. Please refer to Jennie's directions for this portion of the project, under the header "Making the Final Bodice".

At the end of Part 2 of this tutorial, we had removed the basting on our fitted toile and voila, we had our pattern pieces.

Jennie assumes that you will keep those pieces as a master pattern, but since we weren't interested in making a second closely fitted bodice for any reason, we are using the toile pieces as our lining pieces.

In any case, we still have to cut the outer pieces as well. In the photo below, Kathleen has placed one of the lining pieces on fresh fabric and is using it as a template to create an outer piece. Kathleen's bodice is our model for this post...there are several of us in our period sewing group who are making them.

Here below is one of the pieces used as a template, carefully pinned and marked around. You'll notice that we have placed it on a fabric scrap...we saved every piece of fabric we could during this process in order to minimize waste.

Once all the pieces had been cut out, Kathleen marked each one with all the seamlines from the lining pieces, including the dart marks.

We set aside all of the pieces that would be used for the outer layer, and concentrated on the next step...

Boning the Bodice Lining

Here is the bodice lining with the darts clearly marked. Kathleen is ready to baste the darts together, in preparation for sewing down the boning casings.

To sew a dart, she first made a fold in the fabric at what she guessed is the lengthways center of the dart.

Here is her guess.

To make certain that she has lined up the dart markings on both "legs" of the dart, she placed pins along the dart line, then flipped the fabric over to see if the pin holes on the reverse side are on the dart lines there. If they were not she tweaked the fabric and repins until they lined up.

Kathleen's next step was to baste the dart. She basted from the bottom of the dart to the top of the dart.

Kathleen then basted each dart...there are a total of six.

Her next step was to add the bodice boning on top of the darts.

You have lots of choices for boning: steel boning, German plastic boning, reed boning, or regular old prom dress plastic boning, the kind sold with fabric boning casings already applied to the outside, ready to sew down.

Jennie's tutorial covers making your own boning casings from bias tape.

For this project, we used the prom dress plastic kind.

First, we laid out the boning, which comes in a continous coil, down against each dart, and cut six pieces, each as long as each dart. We can trim them to fit later.

Then we removed the plastic from the casing...it slides right out.

Next Kathleen placed a piece of casing next to the stitching line on the dart. We have the bodice lining wrong side up...with the folds of the dart on top.

She pinned down the casing. Then she very carefully backstitched the casing to the dart, starting at the bottom of the dart, backstitching to the top of the dart, across the top of the dart, and then down the other side to the bottom. She made sure that her stitches stayed OUTSIDE of the boning casing's own stitches so that should can insert the boning itself later.

One could do this step by machine, but she is sewing her bodice by hand. Since this portion -- and indeed all portions of the bodice -- gets lots of stress because it's so tightly fitted, she backstitched with small stitches.

Here below is the stitching underway. She stitched the boning casings down for all six bones.

Here are the bones, below, removed from their casings. They are made of a flexible plastic. Because when you cut them with scissors they get sharp edges, it's best to trim the tops and bottoms into slightly rounded tips so that they will not poke through the fabric and irritate the skin. In the photo, the bones have been trimmed...look for example at the bone next to the pair of scissors.

Nancy R., writer of Excels at Nothing,  wrote me to suggest the following further step:

When I've worked with plastic boning, I've always had really good luck runing the cut and rounded end though a lighter or candle flame. It further softens the sharp cut edge. Just don't touch it until it cools.

Thank you, Nancy, for a most sensible tip for handling tips.

After sewing the boning casings to the bodice, it's best to slip the bones in and check that they all slide in. If they don't, check your sewing and make sure it isn't blocking the channels. If it is, sadly you must rip out your stitches and resew.

It's also a good plan to make sure that the stitching at the tops of the bones is sturdy so that the bones will not pop through. Overcast the edges tightly or make multiple seams across the ends.

For ease in constructing the rest of the bodice, it's a good plan to remove the bones again and set them aside. Otherwise the bodice is rather stiff when you try to work with it :}

Next time, assembling the bodice!

1790s Fashion: A Transition from The Enlightenment to Regency, Part 2

Here is the second part of an examination of 1790s fashion through an unscientific sampling of paintings, prints, and fashion plates.  You can read Part 1 here.

As always, please click on images to open a larger version.

An Interlude: Watching the Drawstring Neckline

Last time we ended roundabout 1795, when the arts and fashion seriously turned their attention to all things classical. Yet let's consider the takeover of the gathered drawstring neckline some more.

First of all, it's good to know that drawstrings had been used on gown necklines before this time. While bodices were tight-fitting during most of the eighteenth century, so that they stretched smoothly over the stays beneath, fit could be achieved with drawstrings as well as with pins. Here's an example from a gorgeous 1770s polonaise dress on for sale at the Antique and Vintage Dress Gallery.

In the photo above, the bodice hasn't been fitted to the person...you can see in the other half of the bodice how the fabric straightened out when it was pulled a little to fit over the torso.

Here's another photo of the right side, which has been drawn up a little. Look very carefully about half an inch below the edge of the silk fabric, and you can see stitching. That marks the outer edge of the channel through which the drawstring is run.

One last picture. In this one we see the bodice interior. As with gowns of the day it's lined. A channel the drawstring was simply created by running a row of stitching parallel to and a little below the neckline edge, and the drawstring threaded through: no need for a separate casing. Again, if you look extremely carefully, you can see the outline of the drawstring channel.

Now we have that straight. Anyhow, in the last post we saw the emergence of dresses with obvious neckline gathering, achieved with drawstrings. A few detail shots of paintings we have seen:

The 1780s...chemise dresses with gathered necklines, and chemises or chemisettes with drawstrings appear to show above round gowns.

The Marquise de Pezay's chemise or habit shirt stands out a little on its drawstring so that you can see a portion of the inside as well as the outside. The garment is really heavily gathered, so that would give it some body, but it also appears a bit opaque, so it's not terribly gauzy.

By contrast the Marquise de Rouge is wearing a chemise or habit shirt that is less gathered and sheerer: you can see the casing through which the gathering string is drawn right through the exterior of the garment. I cannot find a really high-resolution version of the picture, but wonder if her dress itself has a gathered neckline, too: the stripes on the bodice do not run vertically, and there is a little bouf right at the center neckline, almost as if there were strings there.

In the early 1790s one of the Falkland sisters (on the left) wears a gathered drawstring chemise dress, with a small frill at the edge.

In Spain, a classical take on the chemise dress.

Once again, I suffer for the lack of a really high-res photo, but seem to see the following:

• The dress gathering runs far out to the shoulders: look to the right of the red bow (marked in image above with second yellow line) and you see gathering. Maria Teresa's hair is covering the left dress strap, so you cannot see that side. The chemise dress patterns in Norah Waugh's Cut of Women's Clothes and in the Everyday Dress of Rural America 1783-1800 do not gather all the way around the neckline. Instead, they gather across the front and then stop at the straps that go over the shoulder.
• What appears to be a double frill (marked with the top yellow line in the image above) on the dress may be the actual chemise worn under the dress, and then the dress atop. Showing both would have been a neat decorative touch.

In 1795, the famous Madame Seriziat and her late chemise dress, with the neckline apparently gathered on a drawstring, this time all the way up to shoulder top, at least. It turns out that the dress has a collar and the fashion fabric is mounted to a lining. Still, there is charted draft of a "white cotton gown" from the Williamsburg collection that shows the drawstring treatment. See http://www.19thus.com/WomensClothing/WmburgGown_c_1800.html.

In the early 1790s, round gowns frequently started to feature gathered necklines on drawstrings, too. Round gowns had been around for years, and were so called because the skirts didn't open in front to reveal the petticoat, and the bodice closed in front, requiring no stomacher. The bodices on earlier round gowns didn't show much gathering, but sat close against the stays.

Here are two ladies wearing examples of the gathered style, part of a group in a Cruikshank caricature of 1795. The pictures are fun, but the topic risque, so be forwarned if you visit the original on Wikimedia Commons.

These were all dresses. However, sometimes robes worn above dresses started to feature drawstring gathered necklines too. A Journal des Dames fashion plate from 1792 shows a very pretty brown robe over a brown and white spotted dress, with pink trim. The robe has a gathered drawstring neckline!  I think this ensemble elegant and really suited for for a costume today. (Image courtesy Costumer's Manifesto.)

Meg Andrews, a well-known textiles dealer, has such a robe on her site (see http://www.meg-andrews.com/item-details/Printed-Open-Robe/6056), and they turn up every so often in collections.

It is harder to find clear examples of either the gathered neckline robes or gathered neckline round gowns in paintings. In the fashion plates and paintings available on the web, light-colored muslin dresses predominate over round gowns. Fashion plates showed high fashion, and the light muslins were highest fashion. Paintings usually showed sitters at their best, too, and again, it appears as if the "little white dress" was most frequently selected as the dress to be seen in. Of course, this is supposition on my part. We in the 21st century may have created a false representation if we preferred to upload pictures of women in white dresses. Not having access to a full catalog of paintings, I do not know for sure.

What is apparent, is that from the mid 1790s onward, the gathered neckline was to predominate over the tightly fitted bodice front, whatever the color or style of dress.

Back to the 1790s

In the last post we stopped in 1795 with a print that poked gentle fun at all things classical. In that print, everyone is quite severely dressed...no ruffles or frills there. Now, let's move forward, looking towards the end of the century.

Oops, I forgot this one from 1794. Here is Princess Frederika (image from Costumer's Manifesto), circa 1794.

She, like Madame Seriziat, is wearing a very plain chemise dress, decorated at hem probably with embroidery and maybe a ribbon applied, since it's a different color than the main dress fabric. She pulls her dress up to show the slightly shorter petticoat, which is also barely trimmed.

In fashion plates, frills and lace still appeared, although not in quite the profusion they had earlier in the decade. For example, in this 1795 Gallery of Fashion print, if you look carefully, you see a small frill on the neckline of her dress. If you visit Cathy Decker's Gallery of Fashion magazine pages, and look year by year, you will see a slow reduction in frilliness as the years go by.

Spotted muslins were fashionable along with the plain white muslins. They are hard to find in exant garments, by the way. That any should survive is amazing, given how light and airy -- and tearable -- the fabric was. You can see two of them in a Cora Ginsburg gallery's 2006 auction catalog, at http://www.coraginsburg.com/catalogues/2006/cat2006pg16&17.htm. For half and full dress, wilk satin was also popular among the upper crust...the fine cottons hadn't quite replaced silks.

You can see spotted muslin in the Heideloff plate, also from 1795, below; image courtesy Cathy Decker's site. As in the plate above, the neckline is not round, but vee-shaped. This plate features figures wearing the very popular open robes above either round gowns, chemise dresses, wrap-front (with the vee-necklines) dresses, or petticoats, with kerchiefs tucked into the robe. The terms round gown, chemise, robe and petticoat, so long used in the 18th century, continued to be used in the fashion press, and referred to the same articles, even though their designs had morphed so much.

Note that fur boas, known as tippets, could replace the long narrow garments that went by the name of cloak in the fashion press, but overall, the idea was to have something long hanging about your neck. Once again, those beads and tall feathers swaying.

Here is a favorite portrait from Wikimedia Commons, this one of the Ryberg family, in 1796. If that is Mrs. Ryberg, I think she must have been a lovely person; she looks, as they might have said, most amiable. Her dress is impeccable.

The dress details are instructive:

Her dress has dispensed with frills and applied decoration but is nevertheless en vogue:

• She is wearing a chemise dress, tied with a very high waistline by a narrow reddish bow that coordinates with her shawl. The bow is simple, not a rosette; I cannot tell for sure but the dress may not have a drawstring at the waist: many did not.
• The dress is entirely plain so far as the viewer knows, and quite sheer.
• The petticoat beneath may be silk, for it has a sheen. It may have a band at the bottom. It was fashionable to hold up your dress to show a little of it; paintings and fashion plates make this movement all the time.
• She is carrying a lovely oblong shawl, with a fancy tied fringe and pretty border, as well as a parasol with a long handle. It looks pinkish and I wonder if it would coordinate or not.
• Her shoes are in a rich yellow, fashionably pointed and with the barest heel. The shoes coordinate with the yellows in the shawl.
• She does not wear powder and her hair is more simply coiffed and narrower than earlier in the decade.

Here is Queen Louise of Prussia, also in 1796 (Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz). The queen had many portraits made over the years, and the ones on Wikimedia Commons (see link above) are all heavily classical in style, as was her tomb, by the way. In this image, she even is depicted with a Sphinx in the background. Her dress is a real find because of the construction details:

The young lady is wearing an extreme example of Classical dress. The keys, at least as I see them, to it are:

• the metal hooks that close the front of the bodice to the shoulders. This appears then to be a bib-front dress, meaning that the bodice front is not attached to the side panels and must be pinned in place. It's the first I have seen for this year, and I almost wonder about the date the work is attributed to.
• The waistband so high up, with heavily gathered skirt beneath. The way the bib front is bloused it's hard to tell, but my guess is that the skirt is apron front style, meaning that it is not connected to the bodice. This means that the bodice front is only connected at part of the sides, and the skirt is split at the side seams. The front skirt panel's waistband would end in long ties. The bodice would be pinned in place, then the skirt front panel brought up and the ends be tied in the back. Skirts were still quite full in 1796: as the years went by they became skimpier and flatter in front.
• There is no sash...sashes begin to drop out of fashion by century's end.
• The sleeves end in trumpet shapes, longer in back than in front, very Greek statue-ish and not long in fashion.
• She still has the long locks of the 1790s, unpowdered, not the updos prevalent around 1800.

Oh, by the way, she liked fashion. Here are scribblings said to have been done in 1795...and they include a sketch of a lady wearing a zone-front dress, in stripes, along with ladies wearing the wide poufy coiffures that so soon would become history.

How about some fashion plates for 1796? Here is one from the German-language Journal für Fabrik, Manufaktur, Handlung und Mode. As with Queen Louise's dress, this chemise dress (or petticoat and kerchief combination) lacks any heavy decoration at the neckline. Over it is worn a cross between the open robe and a coat. The dress is still very full in front, but embroidered and van dyked at bottom. Note the pretty doubled strand of beads at the woman's neckline.

Another 1796 Heideloff fashion plate. There is the spotted muslin, a few frills, the long cloak dangling, the very high waist and very full skirt and the fashionable pose, negligently pulling up one's skirt with a hand.

This year in caricatures is helpful, too. Here is one by James Gillray. I hesitated to show it because it's a bit off-color, but the coiffures and the evening dress, while exaggerated, show very clearly the changes occurring in fashion.

The round-figured lady on the left, the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, is wearing a round gown and some sort of overdress, I suppose, the neckline is frilled or ruched with what is likely lace: lace in full dress (evening dress) remained fashionable for many women. The rather undressed lady next to her wears -- or doesn't -- the height of fashion, an extremely classical gown,  the chemise dress morphed, with split short sleeves closed with golden jewelry and a turban. No apparent gathering at neckline, as seen in one of the fashion plates for the same year, above. No modest neckerchief for the night hours, either. The lady in green's dress has frills at neckline. Everyone sports the tall feathers so popular in the middle of the decade.

From 1797 through 1800, changes in dress sihouette had slowed just a bit, according to fashion plates I have seen. Dresses remained full, if not quite as full as in 1796, spotted muslins and plain muslins still appeared, as did robes. Decoration tended more and more to embroidery or applied ribbon...the flat was more prominent than the 3-D. 

Here, from the Journal des Dames et des Modes (on Cathy Decker's site), a typical example from 1797. She wears a red kerchief over her shoulders and it appears to be crossed at the waist and tied in back, a common look, but in this case, made to attract attention, not for modesty. Note the wild hat. There was a good bit of experimentation in hats.

A few new types of dress appeared, such as the half robe or tunic, worn above the basic dress, as seen here in a plate from Journal des Luxus und der Moden (on Cathy Decker's site):

What changed more were design patterns, and accessories, and hair. The emphasis fell fully in the Classical mode. Some magazines touted wearing sandals, which seems rather silly in a northern European or British climate, and dress details included obviously Greek designs, from Greek keys to acanthus. Some hats look like versions of Greek helmets. And the hair? Away the loving long powdered locks and frizz, welcome the short or the messy, natural updo, that looked to made with very little in the way of hairpieces and none in the way of powder. All of this can be seen in a typical example, again from Journal des Dames et des Modes, on Cathy Decker's site:

Many plates and paintings show dresses with significant trains. It's no wonder so many images include women holding their skirts up around their legs, which to my eye looks bulky and silly: can you imagine walking in the muck with a train made of muslin? Not that the woman in the dark round gown with chemise dress-like sleeves below seems to have cared: she was in mourning.

The above from The Lady's Magazine, December 1797 (Cathy Decker's site). Quite a narrow dress.

What did paintings and prints show from these last three years? Pretty much what the fashion plates did, but less fussy in the details. Perhaps they didn't show well in paintings, perhaps Grecian simplicity was taken further by artists than by designers of dresses. Portraits are quite public, really, and the sitters want to show themselves with their best feet forward. Perhaps the sitter wants to let the viewer know that they support Egalite and Fraternite in France. Perhaps they want to save their necks. Perhaps they want to let viewers know that they are the very type of the solid American citizen. Perhaps they have hired an artist who is enamoured of the Classical or the republican. Whatever the reason, it's smart to look at more than one medium when trying to get some sense for what was fashionable and worn.

Here is Constance Pipelet, by Jean-Baptiste François Desoria. Posed against an almost Rennaissance landscape and a pure plain blue sky, she sits dressed so severely. Not a touch of anything frilly or girlish; athletic, healthy.

A similar simple treatment for Gabrielle Josephine du Pont. A close examination reveals pretty teardrop earrings and perhaps some whitework embroidery on her sleeves, and a silk tie without color, narrow by this point, on her dress.

Not all dresses were in white, and not all references were to classical Greece. Here is Madame Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angely, painted by Francois Gerard. Exhibited at the 1799 Paris Salon, Wikipedia writes of it "Ce portrait un des plus célèbres portraits français, révèle un visage de madone florentine, avec un mélange de douceur et de sensualité qui était la marque de séduction de M^me Regnaud, remarquable par la pureté classique de ses traits" According to my failing memory for French this translates loosely as "this portrait, one of the most celebrated of French portraits, reveals a face like a Florentine Madonna, a mix of sweetness and sensuality which was the mark of seduction of Madame Regnaud, remarkable for the classical purity of her features." Indeed, the dress, as much as the background, does recall some Renaissance treatments...a fashion that we would see occurring more frequently as the Regency progressed, and especially in England.

Just so that we do not forget that not everyone followed the new modes:

From the Lady's Magazine, a plate entitled "The Admonition". The figure to the left I take to be Mama: she's in a round gown with mob cap and apron and early 1790s kerchief, and one daughter, to the right, is also in a dark-colored round gown and kerchief combination, but with her hair in the closer-to-the-head style . The other daughter? The new style pretty much all the way. Different styles co-existed, depending on one's age, station, and proclivities.

And from Isaac Criukshank, two details from a 1799 caricature. In the first, we see "sandal"-wearing with a what might still have been called a round gown, although it was plain as any Grecian-chemise dress. Note the white petticoat!

In the second, what looks like cross-over gown worn with lace at the neck, and purple petticoat beneath. You have to look closely at the hem of the dress, which climbs at one side. The overall effect is conservative, more like something out of the earlier part of the decade.

Here ends this look at 1790s women's fashion. It hasn't covered everything, not by a long shot, and I could have kept on editing the text for a week of evenings. Had I world enough and time, as they say, I would have visited half the museums in the U.S. and Europe, collected photos of every painting, print and plate I could get, and then categorized the contents of each, from head to toe, creating a massive spreadsheet detailing the appearance, change, and disappearance of elements in dress. Alas, not world enough, or time. So scattershot must do. Any comments or corrections appreciated!

In the coming weeks and months, I finish the bodiced petticoat tutorial, and move on to my 1794-95 ensemble, which is evolving not only from the above, but also from an examination of photos and drafts of extant garments, and, I hope, some advice from true professionals in reconstructing them.

Interested in Reading More?

See all my 1790s posts, plus experiments in costuming in 1790s: Costumes.  You'll find a lot of research, such as analysis of extant clothing, portraits, portrait miniatures, fashion magazine texts and plates, even translations from the German Luxus und der Moden, and of course secondary sources, that I've done in efforts to document each part of the costumes made.

A Ditty in Search of a Tune

Friday late morning found the boys and I at Ashland Estate. It was sunny outside, and this winter sunshine has been rare, so we roamed for as long as we could stay warm, picking up sticks, spotting birds, checking for signs of growth among the dark clods and browned grass, and looking for rabbit and chipmunk holes.

And of course, ringing the ship's bell. It used to be that I would lift the twins up, one at a time, so they could knock on it and produce a hollow, musical sound.  This visit had its shock, for Noah climbed atop the memorial plaque that says that this bell was once aboard the USS Ashland, and was made a gift to the Henry Clay estate, reached up inside the bell, and pulled the clapper to the edge. A similar musical sound, but louder. The noise wasn't the shock, it was the fact that he could actually reach the bell and move that heavy clapper. [Small noise of motherly malencholy and pride mixed together.]

Photo: USS Ashland, circa 1950s. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The peonies in the big peony garden on the other side of the estate are showing rich red points above the soil; a gardener was tending them. Daffodils are poking up in the formal garden behind the hedges, and the chickadees -- or birds that sound like them -- are out, as are the red-headed woodpeckers, and flocks of robins. They didn't fear us much, so we watched them turn over pine needles and last year's leaves, looking for bugs that have woken up.

Perhaps it was the blue, blue sky overhead, perhaps it was ringing the bell, which has such a pretty tone, that prompted me to make up a ditty as we wandered around. Anyhow, every time I ended it, the boys wanted it again, and I'd try to remember what I'd said and the tune. It was never the same, and none of us minded, but by the time we reached home again it had settled into the below, sung to a sort of sea-sounding jig, which, unlike the words, didn't stuck with me. No surprise, since I cannot read or write musical notes. A pity. So here's the ditty, and it really needs a tune. Anyone?

Here we go a-sailing
Come, boys, with me!
Blue-water sailing,
White waves a-tailing,
Splish-splash,
Splish-splash!
Over the deep blue sea.

Spring's coming, when you can make up ditties easily. Winter is for thinking and admiring the landscape. Spring is for singing.