- Hi.
So if you follow me on Instagram
then you may or may not have seen
a recent post that I just
did announcing a new project
that I'm to be working on for
the next couple of months.
Well, one month really.
There's this one portrait
in the Washington National
Gallery down in Washington D.C.
in which the subject just so happens
to look nearly exactly like my sibling.
This has been a running
joke for many years
and so we just thought how fun it would be
if I were to reconstruct the dress
in historical practice for them to wear
and then we can go to the museum
and see the two of them side
by side in the same dress.
The portrait is from 1798 I believe.
It's called Portrait of
a Young Woman in White,
and I will put a picture
of the side by side post
somewhere on the screen
so that you too can revel in
the extraordinary likeness.
And so my task now is to get started
on reconstructing the dress.
I have spent many an hour
poring over this portrait trying
to figure out what is
going on with this dress,
how it works and possibly how
it could've been constructed
and here is what I think is the solution.
Now I could be very wrong.
This is just entirely my
interpretation of what's happening,
as obviously nobody is
alive to ask anymore,
and the dress isn't an extant garment
that we can photograph and examine
from the museum collection
or a private collection.
So 1798 would've been part
of the early, early, early Regency period.
They were very heavily
influenced by classical Greek
and Roman statuary, and this
was reflected in their styles
of dress in very long and slim light, both
in material weight and in color, gowns
that the ladies were wearing.
And the woman in the portrait
is a perfect representation
of that style.
From what we understand,
the women in this period would
have been wearing several
layers of clothing.
They would've had a shift,
an undershirt layer.
They would've then possibly
been wearing stays.
Although, that point is debated both
in modern scholarship as well
as in the contemporary texts.
I have found references to
both the wearing of the stays
and not wearing stays within this period.
She would then be
wearing a petticoat layer
and then finally the overdress
and whatever else further that involved
whether it was a jacket or a
shawl or outerwear of any sort.
But, we are stopping at the gown
because that's what the portrait dictates.
However, I have a different theory
about the gown in the painting.
Clearly she is not wearing a shift
because you would see the sleeves a bit.
It would not be sheer
because the shifts had
to have been made from very durable linens
that had to be washed regularly.
So they would not have been made
from very lightweight cottons
as you see on the sleeve
of the gown in the portrait.
So that is the sleeve of her
overgown, I am quite sure.
Which means she possibly
is not wearing a shift.
I am also of the belief that
she is not wearing stays
only because I feel like with the level
that the gown is cut in the portrait,
you would see the top of the stays.
Also, I think her bust is
sitting a little bit too low
for that classic Regency
"lift and separate" effect
that was so the fashion.
So, without the shift and the stays,
it is my theory that the
woman in the portrait
is only wearing her
petticoat and her overgown.
The petticoat, of course,
providing the opacity
of the gown and the overgown
just being completely sheer,
and whether or not she
did this in real life,
whether or not she walked
around without her shift
and her stays in real life,
which, I don't think she did.
I think this was just a
design choice for the style
of the portrait, in that the
desired of the portrait was
to depict a very classical,
Greek sort of ethereal figure,
free from the obvious signals
of very modern-day fashions
which would of been given away
by the presence of the stays.
So, obviously the woman
in the portrait has taken
a little bit of liberty with
the styling of her clothing.
She has cut the opaque layer
of the gown well under her bust
which is something that I
think we're going to try
and not do for our purposes
only because we have
to appear in public with this gown
potentially in a museum setting,
and my sibling probably won't
be up for public nudity.
I have another theory as
to how we could do this,
and, of course, this is probably something
that will be proven or
disproven once we actually have
the garments and can play
with them in three dimensions
instead of just in my brain,
but what I think can happen
is that I've been doing
some research on petticoats.
Backing up for a second.
So, petticoats in the Regency period
are a little bit different
from what we tend to think a
petticoat looks like today.
In that because the
fashionable waistline sat
just under the bust,
there's really no way for a garment
to sit there comfortably
without sliding down.
Therefore, the petticoats
of this period tended
to either have, sort of
suspender-like straps
or a full bodice attached to the skirt.
That way they could
suspend from the shoulders
instead of just sort of
precariously trying to sit
in the middle of your ribcage.
I think we are seeing evidence
of a bodiced petticoat
in the portrait, in that it sort of
is trying to come up over her bust.
And so this is what I'm going
to be starting with today.
Now I have been doing some research
on these bodiced petticoats.
There are a couple of
great extant examples
photographed and online from some museums
that I've been referencing,
and the majority of them
have a drawstring gather
at the neckline, some of
them tying at center front
so that they could potentially
be loosened I think.
So, it is my theory that the woman
in the portrait might possibly have taken
the neckline of her bodiced
petticoat, loosened it,
and just pulled it down so
that it doesn't interfere
with that nice little V-shaped neckline
that she's got going on with the overgown.
This could just be wild conjecture,
but I think that is what
I'm going to start off with
in this great investigation.
So without further ado, we shall go ahead
and get started on the
experimental making process
for this petticoat today.
This will be a part one to
this video series I suppose.
Part two, of course, will be the making
of the actual overgown
and the big, final reveal,
whatever that is.
So, let's get started.
So, starting things off a
little bit differently today,
I'm actually just going to explain to you
where I am in the process
because I have already begun it.
I'm not actually making
this petticoat thing for me,
so I was a little bit pressed for time
in getting things together
for the mock up to fit
while I had them available.
So here is where I am right now.
I have made an initial pattern,
I have done a mock up
and then I have made some
edits to the pattern.
I have cut out the bodice and
started to stitch it together.
So, more footage to resume shortly,
but I'll just take a minute to explain
how I got to where I am right now.
Firstly, I have two reference images
that I pulled from,
this is from MFA Boston
and this one is from
the Metropolitan Museum here in New York.
These are the two petticoat images
that have most intrigued me in regards
to the reference portrait
that I'm working from.
And so these are the ones that I'm using
to reference for my project.
This one I'm interested in
mainly because of the bodice.
I think the shape of the bodice is closet
to what's visible in the portrait.
This bodice is a little bit longer
which I think will interfere
with the delicate neckline
of the original gown.
However, the back of it is
what I'm really interested in
because we actually don't get
a back image of this one here.
So, this is the one that I'm
using for my back reference,
and what's really interesting to me here
is that the armscye is
cut really, really far in
just like the way the 18th
century gowns were cut like.
But I know by the Regency period
a lot of the armscyes tend
to start being cut more towards
the edge of the shoulder,
but this was actually really interesting
to me just story-wise
because it would make sense
that the petticoat could be
homemade based on old patterns
that someone's got lying around
or since this is an undergarment
that doesn't have to be seen,
it doesn't necessarily
have to be fashionable,
it could just be continually
cut the same traditional way
that someone's been
making their petticoats
for years and years and years.
So, I just thought this one
had a really nice story to it,
and I really wanted to
try and replicate this.
And so in order to do that,
I have consulted my trusty Janet Arnold.
I have found some gowns in here
where the shapes of the
bodice patterns actually do
sort of imitate the
references that I have pulled,
and so I'm looking at
the shapes of the pattern
to see if I can just
use some of the geometry
that she's kindly already
provided for me here
so that I don't have to try and figure out
how to draft this myself
because I don't think I'm quite
that knowledgeable in Regency
to be able to do that.
So, this was a little bit
of a Frankenstein process
and I shall show you how I did it.
Hopefully it will all turn out
and it won't be too
horribly pieced together,
but here's what I'm attempting
is that this gown over here actually has
what I think the bodice
shape should look like,
that I'm going for.
Whereas this one over here,
the armscye is cut quite
close to the shoulder.
This one here it's cut a little bit father
into the back and so I
think this is the one
that I'm going to try and go to.
I will probably have to
extend it a little bit
only because I'm not trying
to create this little
bustle shape back here.
That would just interfere with the dress.
And this bodice does curve
up slightly at the back
to allow for that and I
don't really want that.
So, that will probably
have to be extended a bit.
But, these are the shapes
that I think I'm going
to be going for.
So here's the center back
piece that I'm looking at,
and this I've actually
just traced directly off.
However, the front of this
dress doesn't actually do
what I would like it to do.
This one, however, does actually look
sort of similar to the petticoats
that I was referencing.
So, what I actually did is I took one half
of the center back piece
and then I traced off
this bodice piece from the other dress
which actually also has
this little side piece.
I got rid of the side seam and
just traced it all together
since this is just one straight seam here,
and I didn't think that
was really necessary
to split into two.
And then since this curve here has
to fit into this curve here,
I just traced off this shape
while drawing this here
so that it would fit together nicely.
So here's the little scale piece
that I came up with and I did this
by just taking a plain piece of paper
and laying it over the piece
that I wanted to trace.
So I actually started over here,
laid it over this, traced it off,
and then when I wanted to draw this curve,
I took that over here, laid over this,
and then just traced off this
curve on the edge of this.
And then I actually, I believe I made-
Yes, I did make some changes
to the shoulder strap
because the strap in this
gown actually curves up
and it's one piece whereas
this one has a separate strap
that connects to it sort of at an angle.
And so when I got to this point,
I just took my little
drawing back over to here
and I traced off this little
curved shape of this piece
and attached it onto here.
And then I ended up with this
and this is actually now
a scale Janet Arnold-style pattern piece
that I could then scale up to
get the shape that I wanted
to cut out for my mock up.
And so this is the mock
up that I ended up with.
This is actually post-fitting,
so it has been altered a bit.
I've got my waistband here,
and then I've got my bodice shape here
and it connects to the
center back piece here.
And then there were just
some basic fit issues.
So on this side you can actually see this
is where I started measuring
to how long I needed to extend the back
of this bodice and
pinned in a bit of muslin
so that I could see how long it is.
After the fitting I traced off the pieces,
added them to my original,
scaled-up pattern
and then I ended up
with something like this
which I'm not entirely sure is
going to be exactly correct.
I do see that there is a
little bit of bodice curving
on some extant pieces.
Here I'm not quite sure
if it is this dramatic.
We shall see how this all works out.
And so I went ahead and I
cut out my new pattern pieces
out of the real fabric.
This is just a white cotton.
It's a little bit heavier
than what I think a
Regency petticoat cotton
would of been made of,
but because the gown in
the portrait is so sheer
and I do have to put this
on a 21st century model,
I had to give this a
little bit more opacity.
Otherwise, we'd probably be arrested
for indecent exposure and
we don't really want that.
So, slightly heavier cotton.
If you're looking to make
a historically true
recreation of this gown,
probably choose something
a little bit lighter,
I would recommend, but for
the purposes of this project,
it had to be a little heavier.
So I have already begun stitching some
of my pieces together.
I'm sorry it's horribly wrinkled,
I had to travel with it and was working
on it while I was traveling.
I have not finished all of my seams.
I've still got my side seams
that have to be put here.
And the other shoulder
strap that has to go on.
So you will get to see a
little bit of footage of that
as well as the whole skirt
which I have to yet to cut out.
So there will be lots more information
on what's happening with the skirt.
So, let's get on with the
rest of this video, shall we?
So here we are finishing
up that bit of stitching
for the bodice and shoulder straps.
I'm doing this with a very
small, tight back stitch
in waxed linen thread.
Although one who had their
life a bit more organized
than I would've thought to
obtain some bleached linen thread
to blend more naturally
with this white garment.
And, of course, these
raw edges are finished
with a bit of turning and felling.
(gentle music)
And just like that, the
bodice is now together.
And I've gone ahead and marked
out the points to gather
between at the front,
but, for some reason,
it seems I'm ignoring that for now
and felling down the edges
of the armscyes instead.
Can you tell this video
was made over the course
of about a month?
Bodice aside for now,
I'm taking a second to
cut out my skirt panels.
I claim to have gotten
the measurements for these
from one of the gowns in Janet Arnold,
although, as you shall see shortly,
they ended up to be a bit too narrow.
And so that is probably false.
In any case, I am presently
measuring the skirt
width and length directly onto the fabric
as the pieces are just long rectangles
that will be stitched together.
There's a bit of pleating just at the back
of the Met reference
which I'm going to attempt
for this reproduction.
So there's a bit of extra room
at the upper waistband and
yet it was still a bit short.
Someone please send math help.
On the center back panel,
I'm marking and cutting
a 10-inch slit at the
center point for an opening.
The edge of this is then finished off
with a narrow, felled hem.
(gentle music)
So before I go and start
to stitch these skirt panels together,
I just decided to do a
little bit of experimenting
with these little pin tuck pleat things
that I see on the original Met petticoat.
I really love the idea of them.
I think they add quite
a nice little detail
to the bottom of the skirt.
However, I think my fabric
is a little bit too heavy
to be able to do this properly.
Of course I have to stitch them down
and give them a bit of a
press to really find out,
but I'm just not entirely convinced
that this will behave
quite in the same way
as this nice, light, delicate muslin here
However, I think I'm going to go ahead
and just stitch them
in and press them down
and see what happens.
I may just keep them in just because
it is a nice little technique
that I think I want to put into practice
and it will be something
nice to demonstrate
in case you are following along
with your own Regency petticoat
in a more period-correct fabric than this.
So I haven't yet pleated
up the front panel,
and I will go ahead and show
you how I did this on that.
Also I should note that this petticoat
actually has quite a number
of pleats at the hem.
I only have got three plus the hem in here
only because I, of course,
miscalculated my length measurement
and only added enough length
to do these couple of pleats
here, but that's okay.
I'll still have the nice
little pleated effect
just with a little bit fewer pleats,
but I'll still have the
length which I think
is probably more important
than having more pleats.
The original hem is finished
with a one-inch fold
to match the one-inch lower pintucks.
And so I'm just marking a
quarter of an inch to fold up
before marking and folding the
full one-inch hem into place.
It's a bit difficult to
see the pencil lines here,
but I've marked a line two
inches above the pinned line
at the hem and then another
two inches above that.
The idea is that the two pencil lines
will be joined together, like so,
so that the two-inch space
between is folded in half
to form one-inch pleats.
This admittedly took me
much longer to work out
than it should've done.
But I was so ever so certain
I'd finally worked it out here.
Spoiler alert, I hadn't.
I repeated this process
again for the second row,
and with the third,
only the upper tuck is taken a bit wider
at an inch and a half wide
since that's what was
present on the Met reference.
And I just thought I'd go with it.
The pleats are then secured into place
with a running back stitch,
Since these seams are purely decorative
and won't be strained.
So the speed of a running
stitch can be favored
over the strength of a full back stitch.
(gentle music)
And finally they are given a good press
to set them neatly into place.
Then with right sides together,
the skirt panels can be
pinned together and stitched.
One again, I'm just using
a running back stitch
since skirt seams
generally aren't strained
and can, again, provide
a bit of time saving.
And, of course, these seams are finished
with a bit of felling,
folding the seam allowances
over to the back panel
so that the stitches don't
come through on the front.
So, I have finished my
little pintuck endeavor.
Pardon the extreme
wrinkliness of this petticoat.
It's been bunched up in my hands
for the past couple of hours,
but, unfortunately, I've
come to the realization
that I am apparently
completely incompetent at math
and entirely mis-measured
the amount of length
that I would need to add
for these pintucks in order
for the hem still to reach the floor.
You can see I'm still very, very far away.
See, I forgot that in
pleats you actually have
to add one width for the front
and then one width for the back.
And then the extra length here.
Apparently logic isn't
my thing at present,
so I shall be taking out
these three pintucks.
I think I'm going to go ahead
and leave the one-inch hem if I can.
I may let it down if need still be,
but just releasing
these three should solve
the problem I hope.
In any case, it was fun to do
and I hope maybe you learned
something about pintucks
and that hopefully you won't make
my same very, very foolish mistakes.
So to distract myself
from this pintuck existential crisis,
I decided to go ahead and
proceed with the bodice instead.
I'm going to gather up the front bits
so that I can attach the waistband.
So I'm first running a gathering thread
along the bottom edge.
This is basically just
a long running stitch
or basting stitch sitting just
below the seam allowance line
so that it doesn't sit
on the actual garment.
I'm then marking out the measurement
of the final gathered
length onto my waistband,
which I determined when
fitting the mock up.
My bodice should want to
gather down to 14 1/2 inches
and so I'm marking out this length
with the center front point
of the waistband sitting at the middle.
Then I'm fixing both end points
and the center front to
their respective points
on the bodice so that I could
gather down each half accordingly.
By the way, the gathering
thread is also linen.
It just wasn't waxed
so that it would slide more
easily along the fabric.
(tranquil piano music)
The waistband is then
attached with a back stitch.
Now, in order to address the
fullness at the neckline edge,
I'm going to put in a little drawstring
to gather it together.
I'm planning to do this by
folding and basting down
a tiny eighth of an inch at the edge,
then folding it down again to
encase the drawstring tape.
The tape is just a bit
of narrow three-eighths
of an inch woven cotton tape
which will be stitched down
at the base of the neck
edge on either side
and tied together at the middle.
Without having actually
examined an original,
I can't say for certain
that this would have been
the construction method used.
However, the drawstring neck edge itself
is evident on both of
my reference pictures
with the MFA Boston one I'm consulting
for the bodice tying at the center front.
The folded casing is then
quickly felled into place.
Then I can go ahead
and finish off the rest
of the neckline that isn't
involved in the casing.
So the shoulder straps and up and around
to the back of the bodice.
Once again, this edge is
just narrowly rolled under
and then felled into place.
So, my sibling is in town this weekend
so we've just had a fitting
with this little petticoat friend.
It went much better
than I thought it would.
There actually aren't as many problems
with the back shapes as
I thought there would.
I just had to take a little
bit out of the side seams.
The back of it works just fine.
The length of it actually
works really well.
I thought it would be slightly too long,
but it actually works really, really well
and looks very similar to
the Met petticoat example,
which is very good.
I also had to take a little
bit out of the shoulder straps,
but that's no issue.
The only major alteration
which I sort of think
I knew was coming was that the skirt
is indeed very, very slim
and that it is not quite
a hobble skirt, but it is borderline there
and I'm not sure that
that is entirely historically correct.
So I will be inserting some gores
into the side seams of the skirt.
Which, of course, I have
not seen on extant garments,
but it is, of course,
a technique that's been
use on shifts to give
a little bit more width
into the skirt areas.
And so it's not a
historically incorrect manner
of widening a skirt if
you needed to do so.
I'm sure historically they would've
cut their skirts correctly
to begin with only
because they probably have
a little bit more experience
in making petticoats than I do.
But in the spirit of experimentation,
that is how I think I'm
going to solve this issue.
So, I shall get off to doing
these little alterations
and I shall chat with you in a bit.
So, alterations are now complete.
I have now got gores in the
side panels of the skirt,
and it is much more
functional and logical now.
We're going to pretend as if two weeks
haven't elapsed since that last clip.
And we're just going to go ahead
and proceed with finishing
this little petticoat.
All I really have to do
is just cut some facings
for this back panel
so that I can put the
buttonholes and the buttons on,
and then I've just got to
pleat up this back panel
to fit onto the waistband,
put in the drawstring,
and then just finish up this waistband.
So, onward!
I'm drawing out the facing pieces now
which are just the length
of the back bodice panel.
And then one-inch wide,
since I have half inch
buttons that I will be using.
This layer will serve two purposes.
First, to provide an
extra layer of strength
to the fabric where the
buttons will be pulling a bit
and it will also finish
off my center back edges.
The facing pieces themselves are cut
with an additional quarter
inch seam allowance.
I used some commuting time wisely
and got the top and inner edges
of the facing panels hemmed.
So now I'm just attaching
the opposite raw edges of the panels
to the center back panels of the bodice
with a small back stitch.
(tranquil music)
This might not be necessary,
but I've just stitched
the top edge of the panel
to the bodice layer so that
they don't try and peek out.
And with a nice press at the edges,
I am now ready to add in the buttons.
In retrospect,
I would probably have added
a half inch more width
to the button side of the bodice
so that the two panels sit
symmetrically when closed,
but, ah well, next time.
Now I'm going to mark out the
placement for my button holes.
The reference example
features two buttons.
One at the top and the
other around center, level
with the bottom of the armscyes.
So this is what I'm going to
attempt for my reproduction.
Somehow I guess I managed
to convince myself
that these iridescent-y, plastic buttons
were similar enough to the
nice four hole shell buttons
used on my reference.
Present me definitely does not agree.
I want the button holes to
sit an eighth of an inch in
from the outer edge.
So I'm marking this and using the button,
marking how wide to cut the slit.
That done, I'm then clipping
the fabric along this line
and then binding it off
with a button hole stitch
in white, silk thread.
Since these stitches were on
the outside of the garment
and were often seen, nicer
and more expensive silk thread
was frequently employed
for button hole stitching.
Then using the buttonholes,
I'm marking out the
placement for the buttons
and stitching them on.
I'm stitching them on
a bit close to the edge
in some vain effort to have
the panels not overlap so much.
So now I have to finish
attaching the skirt
to the waistband, which I left
unstitched for the fitting
in case the length of the
waistband needed to be adjusted,
but now that that's all settled,
I can go ahead and pleat
up the remaining length
of the skirt.
This, I think, is where I
went wrong with the widths.
The Met example features
six one-inch pleats
on each side of the
back and I was only able
to get in five half-inch pleats.
I imagine all of that extra
width I'm missing would've
made the skirt much more
comfortable to begin with.
This is once again secured into place
with a back stitch.
(tranquil music)
And, last but not least,
it's time to finish off the waistband.
I've cut a second length
of waistband and pressed
in the outer edges
so that this can sit over top
of all of those mangy innards
and finish up the inside neatly.
But first, since the
Met example also secures
at the waist point with
a bit of drawstring,
I'll be inserting another
length of cotton tape
between these layers.
I'm just trimming up some of
these excess edges real quick,
then laying down my tape
and pinning the waistband on top
starting at the center front
and working my way out.
When I get to the end,
I'm just making sure that both outer
and inner layers of the
waistband are folded inward
to protect those raw edges.
Both edges are felled down
and I'm making sure to catch
the seam allowance area
of the outer layer so
that my felling stitches
don't show through to
the front of the garment.
Once again, I must disclaim
that the method I'm using here
is strictly my
interpretation of how I think
the features on the
garments in the photographs
were originally constructed.
However, as I've not
seen the extant objects,
I can't be entirely certain.
And with that finished,
the petticoat layer is complete.
I feel like this process was mainly
an extraordinary learning
process in the cut and shaping
of Regency garments.
It is so far from perfect
and part of me is already looking at this
as a mock up attempt
and it's ready to start
on the new and improved
petticoat right away.
But therein I suppose
is the point of these dress diaries
to document the process
so that I can recognize
what can be done better
when that next time does come around,
and hopefully you can too.
Anyway, I'm glad I've gotten
this little bit of experience
before proceeding onto the main gown
which I'll be working on
throughout the coming month.
In the meanwhile, do stick
around for some smaller projects
and some costume-y chats if you like.
And perhaps I shall see you soon
for some more historical
sewing adventures.
