Rescheduling... W.I.P. Robe à la Française

So, the robe à la Polonaise project got delayed because the floral robe à l'Anglaise - that was supposed to be finished before starting with the polonaise - got damaged and my schedule got messed up. After heavy repairing on the anglaise I realized that I would have to start preparing for the next event and start sewing my planned outfit for this year's Christmas ball. I could always wear the polonaise for the ball, but polonaises aren't really ball gowns so I decided it would have to be rescheduled for later. It might not even happen before next spring. It doesn't really need to be because it's probably best suited for strolling outdoors in the summer and I really need to make other garments now. 

So it was time to start making one of my other long term dream projects - A robe à la Française with narrow back pleats. I have always loved this gown from MET and wanted to create something similar. Luckily, I even happened to have some fabric ready for it in my stash. I had bought it more than year ago and had had difficulties deciding on what to make out of it so I had looked at some paintings of 18th century ladies wearing dresses made from white/cream silk satin. Then I remembered this famous gown from V&A and the decision was made - even though I was a bit afraid my fabric might be a little too heavy for the back pleats to drape well. Honestly, it should be a little lighter but I took the risk and I don't think it looks that bad. Or what do you think?

I enlarged the pattern from Norah Waugh's The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600-1900 and spent almost all my spare time last week trying to get the bodice to fit. Finally after the third mock-up I was satisfied with the fit and the real fun could begin. First, the lining was cut from linen and the back was sewed up...

Then I moved on to the most exciting part... cutting and pleating the backside of the dress! Here's what it looks like at the moment, pinned on my dress dummy:

Tomorrow I'm going to stitch the front lining to the back of the bodice and try it on. I really hope it fits as well as it should... 

Le Petit Bal au Petit Palais

After a few months of lonely sewing I always kind of forget why I love this hobby so much so it's great to get to meet some people that are into the same things as you a couple of times a year. About two weeks ago I traveled six hours by train down to Tampere to attend a little ball there. At first I thought about making a long post about this wonderful event but then changed my mind because both Nora and Merja already blogged about it and I feel like I haven't got much to add to what they said. So here comes a post with lots of photos with only a short description.

Photo: Teemu Laukkarinen

To sum it all up, the ball was wonderful and you could engage yourself to many different kinds of activities, although from my part the evening was mainly filled up with socializing and watching others perform.

Photo: Markku Arvonen

I was as lazy as always taking photos but luckily there were other photographers who did so much better job than me capturing the event. I only fetched my camera at tea/coffee time and later in the evening. So now there's a bunch of photos taken by me of people holding cups and drinking coffee.

Later in the evening I happened to have my camera ready for moments like the one below ;) Here's Ida checking her garters and tying them securely for her dance solo.

Maija of Couture Mayah looking happy wearing her ever so lovely striped polonaise.

Who could resist a silly bum shot of the striped gowns?

I would have loved to dance more than I did but I've had the flu on and off for some time and that night I wasn't feeling good enough to dance more than once. Besides, even though the dance I participated in was familiar from several past events, I kept forgetting where to go and what to do so I'll have to try to dance more some other time in future events when I'm feeling better.

Photo: Teemu Laukkarinen

One of the best things: Muskotti playing dance music.

Photo:Teemu Laukkarinen

And for the end of this post, a couple of shots of the striped robe à l'anglaise with accessories. I kind of bore myself by using the same accessories all over and over again but the red belt looks nice with all of my recent gowns.

Photo: Teemu Laukkarinen

Photo: Merja

To read more about the details of the evening, check out these two posts by Before the Automobile and The Shadow of My Hand. Nora and Merja did so much better job at describing the whole evening than I did.

Second Robe à la Polonaise - planning stage

I've got so many exciting projects coming up it's getting hard for me to pick which one I want to do first. As a lonely seamstress I've recently been easily tempted by online group costuming projects because that's the closest I can get to sewing together with friends right now. Before I start blogging about 18th Century Court Ensembles Project (hosted by Kendra of Démodé) there's at least one dress of my dreams to make.  Ever since I realized the purple robe à la polonaise isn't going to fit anymore I started visualizing a new robe à la polonaise. At the moment it's my favorite style of all 18th century gowns and now that I'm used to it, I even find the hanging front kind of appealing. My original idea was to make a pale blue robe à la Polonaise with either wide self-fabric or silk organza trimming and black bows. But by now I know there are at least two light blue robe à la Polonaise gowns made in the recent past by other seamstresses and I'm getting very concerned about the uniqueness of this dress. Or should I say, the lack of it. I'm pretty sure many of you have already seen photos of the recreation of the robe à la Polonaise worn by Madame Elisabeth of France in the painting below. In case you haven't, here's a link to the blog about that dress in particular.

Madame Élisabeth seated at her harp by Charles Leclercq, 1783

At the time I first saw photos of that dress on the net I had just decided to order ice blue silk taffeta from Renaissance Fabrics but had not yet done it. It felt like a really big drawback for me because it started to feel like I'm going to copy that recreation, careless of the fact that I already had had that design in my mind for a long time. Not precisely the same design, but close. So this is where I got stuck. After a short while, I also saw another very similar dress made by Les Corsets de Lola on facebook (also found on this website) and lost almost all will to make the whole dress. That made me ponder the possibility of mixing two dresses: a Spanish robe à la Polonaise from Museo del Traje with light blue robe à l'Anglaise from Abiti Antichi. But somehow I didn't feel as excited about it as I had felt about the original idea. With the two following prints featuring two totally cute robe à la Polonaise gowns, I'm still considering making it in light blue. I would also love to make the petticoat daringly short, with shoes and a hint of ankle covered by stockings showing.

Fashion Plate (1780) from Los Angeles Public Library

The straw hat and the walking stick really complete this pretty little outfit...

1870s print of French Baronesses from 1783

Talking about group costuming projects, some time ago Merja started writing about her thoughts on making a robe à la Polonaise on Livejournal so we thought it would be fun to make them at the same time and arrange a group photography session after we're both done with our dresses and it really brought back my inspiration for this project. I hadn't lost it completely but I guess I just needed something to push me forward. Because I love to draw quick sketches to clear my thoughts, here's the design I was thinking about back in March. And still am, with slight alterations.

And another sketch that was actually made right before the one above. I don't like this as much as the other, but I thought it might be nice to share it anyway. 

Currently I don't feel so well because I've probably caught a cold or something but as soon as I get back on my feet I will finish revamping the floral robe à l'Anglaise asap and then head to see what the local fabric stores have to offer and  then I really hope I will come to a conclusion so that this dream project can finally start coming true. And hopefully, I'll end up having a cute dress something like this in the end: 

Portrait d'une Jeune Dame de Qualité, 1777, by Jean Laurent Mosnier.

Revamping another floral robe à l'anglaise

First of all, I must introduce my new friend to all of you who aren't my friends on facebook. A while ago I found this nice dress dummy from a second hand store and even though she isn't exactly my size she can wear my dresses surprisingly well for a random find. I'm considering padding her at some point I but at the moment I'm feeling too lazy to do it. And I'm not yet sure if I want to do it anyhow because right now she can wear one of my friend's dresses (without stays) as well as mine (with stays).  

Currently I'm revamping yet another floral robe à l'anglaise that was made a few years ago. Basically it wasn't in desperate need of a revamp but it bothered me so much that something had to be done to it. I ended up taking it almost completely apart because it was badly machine sewn and because the lining was loose and made out of sheet so I had to cut new pieces for it from linen. At the moment the dress nearly completely reassembled, lacking only the sleeves and hooks and eyes. Eventually the skirt of the robe will be looped up with tapes on the inside of the dress. This is how it looks now:

Since this is an old gown, I'm starting to feel like it needs something new to it - to cheer it up a little bit. This is not my gown so the final decision lies in the hands of it's owner but I'd still love to hear your opinion about it. The original plan was to decorate the dress with self-fabric trim but after some research on the net I realized that none of the similar extant gowns had self-fabric trimming. Evidence can be seen on this Pinterest board. 

I know many costume makers just love to trim their dresses heavily with self-fabric and I sure love to do so as well. But now I feel like I really don't want to do it with this dress like I did with the earlier robe à l'anglaise that was already doomed to be historically inappropriate because of it's fabric. But this fabric looks much more historically appropriate so I wouldn't like to ruin it by decorating it in a way that isn't. So what do you think? Have you stumbled upon a floral robe à l'anglaise that is indeed decorated with self-fabric trim? Or any other kind of trim that I could use? Of course accessories will make the whole costume look a bit more interesting but I still feel like the robe itself needs something to it. Please let me know what you think!

And here's one more quick shot of the bodice...

This is what the gown used to look like when it was made.

I don't think I have quite enough fabric left to make a matching petticoat but I'm thinking about making either a light blue or a sheer white petticoat instead. Or maybe even both. The petticoat seen in the two old photos no longer exists.

Early costumes: Floral robe à l'Anglaise, 2009

Because there's nothing new to post about, it's time for a post about an old dress. I actually tried to make a half-polonaise but it failed miserably. The visual effect on the front side made my bust look as small as the waist so that my upper body looked like a straight tube. Or even worse, so that the waist actually looked bigger than my bust. I'm not even going to share any photos of it with you because it's so horrible. Not to mention all the wrinkles.

My aim was to wear the demi-polonaise at a ball last April but as you can imagine, I didn't even finish the whole thing. After the lost case, I had only a couple of days to pull something together for the event. So I had a chance to finish an old dress that had been a work in progress for some time. It's a floral robe à l'Anglaise retroussée that I originally sewed back in 2009, being also the second dress that I ever made. It was also the first dress that I wore with stays underneath. Long story short, after a few years it no longer fit so it had to be taken apart and the fit had to be altered. The design remains basically the same as in the beginning but it's made with much more care than back then.

To be honest, I have a sort of love-hate relationship with this dress. I got the printed cotton fabric as a gift from a dear friend and I've always loved the floral pattern of it. The combination of gold and blue (accompanied with red and white) has to be my favorite combination of colors ever. But. There's always a but. So there's a tiny voice in my head that tells me blue fabric with gold printed floral pattern isn't an historically appropriate choice anyway. It's actually a modern Christmas season fabric.

If I remember correctly, the original pattern is based on a pattern in the book Period Costume for Stage and Screen by Jean Hunnisett. As many of you can tell, the trimming style is based on a polonaise dress c. 1770-85 from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1.

 

Because of having worn this dress to events before, I let the hem fall down instead of pulling the skirt up.

The pose in the photo below is awkward but this is the only photo of the back of the dress worn like this.

In the following photos I'm wearing a quick and simple mob cap that I made for 1780's costumes. It's my back-up plan in case of bad hair days. :)

And this is how the dress looks from the back with the skirt pulled up with two strings.

A few photos of the construction... I started by fitting the bodice lining by taking it in both at the sides and in the back.

 Then the en fourreau back was attached to the lining.

After a few failed attempts to repleat the en fourreau pleats of the back I simply took the dress in at the back as seen in the photo below.

Next, the front panels and the shoulder straps were added. Bones were put into channels at centre front in order to keep the front straight.

By this point I got very lazy and didn't take any photos of the remaining parts of the construction. As usual, I'm going to be honest and admit I cheated at several points. Similarly to my purple robe à la Polonaise, the lace ruffles at the ends of the sleeves aren't separate and the lace along the neckline is stitched to the bodice and not to the shift. This dress was a practice project for fun rather than a very serious project anyway. 

Also, I'd like to thank Chelsea, Kendra, Kirstine and Katie Jacobs for nominating me with the very inspiring blogger and one lovely blog awards. I'd love to pass them on but it's so hard to keep up with who has already received the awards and who hasn't so I'm afraid I'm going to pass this time.