Adventures In Costuming
So with my last sewing project completed, I'd thought, mistakenly, that I would be taking a break from sewing for a while. takhisiss, at least had declared it to be so for her at least, swearing off sewing for at least another year. And yet... things never go as planned.
Cue a Christmas party invitation. We were undecided for a bit as to whether or not we were even going to go. takhisiss no longer has a dress, having completely scrapped the one she made to wear in Savannah and I had already worn mine for that trip, and for running around on Halloween. If I'm to dress up again so soon, I wanted a new dress. Tak, of course was in complete agreement and wants another one as well. In the end I figured what the hell... I need a dress for the upcoming trips we have planned, even if they're a year or two in the future. I might as well get a jump start on it now.
So began the task of inventorying exactly what it is we would need to make. Let me just say, it isn't pretty.
The corset I wore in Savannah is shot. I managed to pop more than a couple of grommets somehow and the bottom trim is coming off. Not to mention, I'm comfortable with the idea of lacing down a bit tighter than what that corset allows for. takhisiss, has no corset and after seeing the differences in our dress appearances of with vs without, she now agrees with me that a corset is indeed necessary. I feel like I've accomplished a miracle there. She is insanely thin to begin with but it's damned near impossible to fit the bodices and have them smooth and wrinkle free without wearing one.
So we ordered another corset pattern, this time from AtelierSylphecorsets on Etsy. If you're looking for corset patterns, I'd recommend taking a look at her selection. I haven't made one from her patterns yet, but they're all drafted from vintage corsets in her collection and the reproductions I've seen look amazing. I can't wait to get started on my own.
Petticoats.... well, we have two of them. They fit her for the length but not the waist. They fit me in the waist when I'm corseted down to 25", but I trip over them. In the end I had to roll the waistband over a couple of times which produced one unsightly lump beneath the bodice which I was not pleased about in the least. It presents us with the possibility of having to make at least four more petticoats. Tak could potentially use the two we have if she corsets down but whether or not she can get down that far? I have my doubts. The few times I've gotten her to try on my corsets, I can only get about an inch reduction on her before it gets uncomfortable. For myself, I'd just hem the damned things except that they're black and I'm likely to be making a lighter colored dress which they'll show through... Yeah, four petticoats.
We DO have one bustle.... for which I am thankful, so I'll only have to make one of them. There's only one issue I'm looking at right now and that's the problem I had with the skirts tangling around my legs when the bustle had a boning malfunction. The new bustle pattern I have is a lobster tail, which precludes adding a row of boning at the bottom to prevent that from happening again. I may end up adding a double row of boning around the bottom petticoat just to save my sanity.
Then we come down to the dresses themselves. Originally we'd both picked out dresses from the Natural Form era off of lovely fashion plates, but plans change, especially when you see a reproduction of the dress and the shape of it makes you cringe. Yeah, that happened with the dress I'd picked and once I said oh hell no, Tak followed suit with her choice. Back to searching we went and to be honest, I feared I was going to lose my mind. NOTHING stood out to me, at all.
Until I found this painting by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.
Specifically, the white dress. So, now I have my inspiration. I'd thought about just recreating it exactly as painted but at the same time there's parts of it that I'm rather blasé about. I much prefer trained skirts to demi trained, so the base skirt isn't doing much for me. I do love the overskirt though. I'm seriously considering using a fantail skirt pattern for the base, and refrain from tying it back all the way. It'll give just enough of a sweep I think that it'll just accentuate the drapery of the overskirt and it will give me the silhouette that I've always loved about these dresses.
The bodice is proving to be problematic on finding a pattern. None of the ones I've found have the same basque, so I'm making a leap and pulling a pattern out of my copy of Fashions of the Gilded Age Vol. One. There's a bodice in there that will work with a minimum of alteration. I'll just have to scale the pattern up and then tailor it to fit. I'm also undecided about the sleeves on the dress in the painting. I love the trumpet sleeves on the lady in the peach dress that's coming up the stairs. The dress styles are so similar, I don't think I would have a problem switching them out.
Surprisingly enough,Tak has decided she likes the dress I have chosen which took me off guard. She's never been much of a fan of the late bustle era to begin with. She prefers the high waisted look of the early bustle period and the poofs and drapery that go along with it.
Now, what she'll choose to do with her dress? I'm not exactly certain at this point. She keeps mentioning the butterfly train pattern that I have tucked away, but if she does that, the overskirt on the dress is going to have to go, otherwise she'll have a shelf back there large enough to serve a tea party of six sitting on her ass. We'll figure it out, I'm sure. Today was supposed to be a sewing day but we were both so tired, not much got accomplished. We need to stop doing that or this project is never going to get done.
More to come later... I'm going to try to keep a dress diary for this project, so posts should be coming more frequently than they have been.
Cue a Christmas party invitation. We were undecided for a bit as to whether or not we were even going to go. takhisiss no longer has a dress, having completely scrapped the one she made to wear in Savannah and I had already worn mine for that trip, and for running around on Halloween. If I'm to dress up again so soon, I wanted a new dress. Tak, of course was in complete agreement and wants another one as well. In the end I figured what the hell... I need a dress for the upcoming trips we have planned, even if they're a year or two in the future. I might as well get a jump start on it now.
So began the task of inventorying exactly what it is we would need to make. Let me just say, it isn't pretty.
The corset I wore in Savannah is shot. I managed to pop more than a couple of grommets somehow and the bottom trim is coming off. Not to mention, I'm comfortable with the idea of lacing down a bit tighter than what that corset allows for. takhisiss, has no corset and after seeing the differences in our dress appearances of with vs without, she now agrees with me that a corset is indeed necessary. I feel like I've accomplished a miracle there. She is insanely thin to begin with but it's damned near impossible to fit the bodices and have them smooth and wrinkle free without wearing one.
So we ordered another corset pattern, this time from AtelierSylphecorsets on Etsy. If you're looking for corset patterns, I'd recommend taking a look at her selection. I haven't made one from her patterns yet, but they're all drafted from vintage corsets in her collection and the reproductions I've seen look amazing. I can't wait to get started on my own.
Petticoats.... well, we have two of them. They fit her for the length but not the waist. They fit me in the waist when I'm corseted down to 25", but I trip over them. In the end I had to roll the waistband over a couple of times which produced one unsightly lump beneath the bodice which I was not pleased about in the least. It presents us with the possibility of having to make at least four more petticoats. Tak could potentially use the two we have if she corsets down but whether or not she can get down that far? I have my doubts. The few times I've gotten her to try on my corsets, I can only get about an inch reduction on her before it gets uncomfortable. For myself, I'd just hem the damned things except that they're black and I'm likely to be making a lighter colored dress which they'll show through... Yeah, four petticoats.
We DO have one bustle.... for which I am thankful, so I'll only have to make one of them. There's only one issue I'm looking at right now and that's the problem I had with the skirts tangling around my legs when the bustle had a boning malfunction. The new bustle pattern I have is a lobster tail, which precludes adding a row of boning at the bottom to prevent that from happening again. I may end up adding a double row of boning around the bottom petticoat just to save my sanity.
Then we come down to the dresses themselves. Originally we'd both picked out dresses from the Natural Form era off of lovely fashion plates, but plans change, especially when you see a reproduction of the dress and the shape of it makes you cringe. Yeah, that happened with the dress I'd picked and once I said oh hell no, Tak followed suit with her choice. Back to searching we went and to be honest, I feared I was going to lose my mind. NOTHING stood out to me, at all.
Until I found this painting by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.
Specifically, the white dress. So, now I have my inspiration. I'd thought about just recreating it exactly as painted but at the same time there's parts of it that I'm rather blasé about. I much prefer trained skirts to demi trained, so the base skirt isn't doing much for me. I do love the overskirt though. I'm seriously considering using a fantail skirt pattern for the base, and refrain from tying it back all the way. It'll give just enough of a sweep I think that it'll just accentuate the drapery of the overskirt and it will give me the silhouette that I've always loved about these dresses.
The bodice is proving to be problematic on finding a pattern. None of the ones I've found have the same basque, so I'm making a leap and pulling a pattern out of my copy of Fashions of the Gilded Age Vol. One. There's a bodice in there that will work with a minimum of alteration. I'll just have to scale the pattern up and then tailor it to fit. I'm also undecided about the sleeves on the dress in the painting. I love the trumpet sleeves on the lady in the peach dress that's coming up the stairs. The dress styles are so similar, I don't think I would have a problem switching them out.
Surprisingly enough,Tak has decided she likes the dress I have chosen which took me off guard. She's never been much of a fan of the late bustle era to begin with. She prefers the high waisted look of the early bustle period and the poofs and drapery that go along with it.
Now, what she'll choose to do with her dress? I'm not exactly certain at this point. She keeps mentioning the butterfly train pattern that I have tucked away, but if she does that, the overskirt on the dress is going to have to go, otherwise she'll have a shelf back there large enough to serve a tea party of six sitting on her ass. We'll figure it out, I'm sure. Today was supposed to be a sewing day but we were both so tired, not much got accomplished. We need to stop doing that or this project is never going to get done.
More to come later... I'm going to try to keep a dress diary for this project, so posts should be coming more frequently than they have been.