1880s Gold Bustle dress – All done!

In my two previous posts, I shared the progress of making an 1880’s gold/black bustle dress.

I’ve had the gold fabric for this dress for a while. The occasion to finally make this was a private anniversary in the U.K. to which I was graciously invited. There were a couple of days, all in the ‘Victorian bustle’ theme, so it was the perfect reason to make a new garment. The event was lovely, and I really loved wearing this new dress. As always, I have some small things I want to fix already (mostly necklines which wanted to gap open a little), but overall I’m really happy with how it turned out. This fabric was a joy to work with and wear.

Thanks to Serena and Melchior for taking some pictures for me!

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It was originally inspired by this dress from the MET:

MET museum Evening dressca. 1880 Wechsler & Abraham 

I changed the underskirt to better suit my taste and fabric stash, inspired by the design of this dress:

NGV. Day dress (c. 1883) ENGLAND Medium silk, cotton lace, metal Accession Number 1411.a-b-D5

And I added a ballgown bodice based mostly on this existent one;

“Evening dress, 1886-87. Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

1880s Gold Bustle dress – Bodices

With the skirt post done, it’s time to move to the bodices of the gold 1880s dress! I started the evening bodice after making the train base, and worked on the skirt/bodice interchangeably. I also planned the ball bodice at that time, but as this project had a deadline, I did finish the full evening version of this outfit first before starting on the ball version. In the end, I had enough time to finish both!

I used the Truly Victorian TV462 tail bodice as my base. Interestingly, the current cover of this bodice includes a keyhole neckline exactly like my target dress, but my pattern doesn’t have that image on the front, and neither does it have the keyhole on the pattern. It might be that I have an older version, but it meant I ended up drawing the neckline on me by myself. I also changed the back, removing the pleats. As TV patterns tend to fit me reasonably well, I made the mock-up out of the black cotton I also planned to use for the lining. After fitting, I cut the silk, flatlined all the pieces, and did the main construction aside from darts and side seams. The darts I did while fitting another time. The side seams I waited with until after I finished the bottom. This way, it’s easier to let out in the future if I want to, a theatre trick I learned from one of Redthreaded’s videos.

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I marked the keyhole neckline first when fitting, and then used a silk facing piece in the exact shape. This was sewn on right sides together, the neckline was cut out (this was scary!), the facing flipped to the wrong side and stitched down. I have no clue if this is a period way to do it, but it worked for me. I decided on a facing rather than bias tape because of the sharp corner, and I like how that turned out.

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The next step was finishing the bottom! I made my own piping by stitching a cord into a bias strip, and sewed this to the bottom fronts and back. After this was done, I could finally finish the side seam. It was a bit odd for me to use this order of sewing, as I’m so used to construction first, finishing edges second, but I do like the size flexibility it gives! The next step after this was to add the collar, and finish the neckline like that.

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The original garment has a lot of self-fabric covered buttons, and I decided I wanted the smallest ones possible. Of course, this meant covering a lot of little buttons, which was fiddly at best… The official mold for these self-covered buttons didn’t work too well with this small size (I’ve used it for larger versions without problem). So I ended up running a gathering thread (by hand) around the edge of the fabric to pull it in tight around the button that way. I do really like the look of the finished buttons!

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The final steps were button holes (sewn by hand, as I do really prefer that look), and to sew on the pearl trim. I decided to go with a plastic, pre-made pearl string. The original has very tiny pearls, and given the deadline I decided to not find individual pearl beads and string them. You can see the difference up really close, but I called this a ‘good enough’. I can always go and change the trim later if it does bother me in the future.

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And then it was time for the ballgown bodice! I designed this in photoshop based on some originals. My main concerns were: have some black; but the black should be removable if I ever want to wear this with a different underskirt. I ended up deciding to do a ruched black panel on top of a gold base. If I really want to change it up, I need to unpick some trim, but not deconstruct the entire thing.

For the pattern, I went with the adapted version of the evening bodice. As I tend to make any adaptations directly on my mock-up, I just traced pattern pieces from the bodice directly. Then I could cut the flatlining (white cotton) and silk fabric! Again, I fitted it again after flatlining and basic construction, and pinned the darts directly on the body.

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With the base done (I finished the neckline with bias tape), I could create the draped pieces. I did delay the center front and shoulder seams, as I wanted to make the trim disappear inside them. In the end, this didn’t actually work for the center front, as the ruched piece will go on top. I cut the basic shape for the draping out of cotton first, and then experimented with increasing the width to get the gathers. I cut two pieces of this, and draped it on the bodice, pinning it down in strategic places to get the folds to lay nicely.

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For the black ruched piece, I followed a similar strategy, cutting it out of cotton first, widening it so it could be gathered up, and then cutting and gathering the black silk. This panel was finished by turning in all the edges, and stitched on top of the bodice beneath the gathered pieces. (I made the gathered pieces first to determine the size of the black panel, but I did stitch on the black panel first, as it goes below the other one)

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To finish the bodice, I hand sewed eyelets around boning in the center back, and I finished the bottom with piping. There are a couple of boning pieces inside, the most important one which is in the front, as it keeps the center front point from flipping up. I also added very small gold sleeves (which I didn’t take pictures of…)

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And then it was time for final touches, the bows! I found a tutorial for fabric bows here. Basically, you create one long ribbon strip, and loop this to get a bow with two loops on either side and tails. I ended up using a bit of organza ribbon to go around the bow and tie it together. I originally planned on just having bows on the sleeve heads, but I also added one to the bottom of the gathered pieces, and I am really happy with how that looked!

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And then the whole ensemble was finished, with an evening version with long sleeves and train, and a ball version with short sleeves and train bustled up! Some pictures of the final ensemble on me and about the event will follow in a future post!

1880s Evening gown – Skirts

And then suddenly over 2 months have passed without a post!

I the meantime I have been working on the gold 1880s dress project that I talked about last time. In fact, I’ve now finished it, so time for some catching up. In this post, about the skirts!

I started this project with the train. Not because that made most sense per se, but because I knew it’d take the most fabric, and I wanted to make sure how much I’d have left.

I used the TV Butterfly Train pattern, in the shorter version. I cut the fabric on my living room floor, as it’s the biggest in the house and actually allowed me to lay out the pattern fully. I chose to slightly piece it to save on fabric. With the pleating in the train, it will be nearly impossible to spot when it is worn anyway.

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Cutting on the floor (spot the cut lines!) and piecing in the corner

I cut the silk, and seamed all the pieces together. Then I did the same thing with the lining. I chose to line it out of plain black cotton. While black isn’t the most historical lining fabric, I knew I’d wear this with a black underskirt and I wanted it to be the same in case the train flips over and you see the inside. It’s a bit less conspicuous this way.

Construction was extremely simple. It’s bag lined, so lining and silk sewn right sides together and flipped inside out. Then the two sides were pleated up, and the top left and top right part were attached to the waistband. The top center is finished by turning the edges in, and then it is pleated up from the center and attached to the center of the waistband. This creates the ‘butterfly’ effect like poof that the train is named after.

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Laying the silk on the cotton lining to pin it in place for the bag lining & a top view of the pleats attached to the little waistband piece.

The train has its own waistband which hooks unto the overskirt (as that needs to close center back, so under the train). I also tried out some methods to bustle up the train, as I also want to be able to dance in this dress. Eventually, I settled on attaching one ribbon center back, with two button holes. There are buttons lower on the train to button it up. Then on the sides, I attached ties, as well as a bit further down towards the center. These tie to each-other to bring up the sides. It shows a little bit of the black lining when bustled up, but I don’t really find that bothersome as the underskirt is the same color.

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Trying out how to bustle up the train with the lining fabric only & the train waistband which hooks onto the overskirt waistband in the back.

The front overskirt is of the same gold, and I patterned myself with a little help from examples in Izabella Prior’s the Victorian Dressmaker books. I mocked it up from a sheet, and basically played around with pleats and length until I got the look that I wanted. It’s a basic rectangle type shape which is pleated up the sides. I ended up pulling the bottom side points of the rectangle over the back of the bustle and attaching a hook to keep them in place there. This makes sure that the overskirt has the feeling of volume and pleats without hanging down too low. The overskirt is attached to a black waistband ribbon, closing center back, with eyes to hook the train over. The back looks a little funny on its own (and I have no clue if it resembles period patterns), but with the train on top it looks like I meant to!

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Patterning the overskirt out of an old sheet – the handstitched hem – the sides are pleated up and sewn down by machine (they won’t be visible), attachment to the twill tape waistband – the finished overskirt from the front – the finished overskirt in the back, this is covered by the train.

Then, finally, there was the black underskirt. The base was really quick to make, using the TV1880’s underskirt pattern, but of course adding a pocket. It’s made out of black twill cotton, as I wanted a solid base. Base, because the skirt is almost entirely covered in trim! I ended up taking inspiration from an other original 1880s dress, and settled on one row of knife pleats, two rows of stacked box pleats and a large ruched panel.

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To try out the design, I copied the underskirt of the original dress I liked and pasted it on top of my picture, painting it black. Then I could measure the height of the pleats and the ruching.

The pleats took a little time to make and prepare, and various calculations were done and re-done to ensure I had enough silk (I’m still not sure I did it right, but I had enough fabric, so it’s okay). The pleats were all hand pleated, pinned in place, sprayed with a vinegar/water mix to set the pleats, steamed, and taped in place with painter’s tape. This last step ensures that the pleats can fully dry and won’t be distorted when handling them later. The ruched panel is one large piece with gathering stitches running horizontally. I ended up not giving my piece a lot of extra length, so the ‘poofs’ aren’t quite as poofy as in the example, but I actually quite like this slightly flatter look. The entire panel was then stitched on the skirt, together with the pleats. Only after doing this, did I finish the side-seam, so I could include the ruched panel in the seam. It took some fiddling to then make the pleats match over the seam, and if you look closely you can see that the pleats aren’t quite the same there. It’s not noticeable if you don’t look closely though, so I really don’t mind.

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Pleating the knife pleats, stitching down the stacked box pleats, and gathering the ruched panel on the base skirt. This is why I didn’t sew the final seam yet, makes it a lot easier to lay it out flat!

And that completes the whole lower part of the outfit! I’m really happy with how luxurious the gold and black work together so far!

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The Stripey bustle

I made a thing. It’s fabulously seasonal, wasn’t at all on my to-do list, and I’m really happy I made it.

The thing is that I have a ton of projects on my to-do list, both smaller things to finish and bigger ones I’ve already got the fabric for. There are enough plans on there to last me a couple of years I suspect.

But after finishing my green 1830’s dress, I mainly wanted an ‘easy’ project, something that wouldn’t require too much thinking, and which would be fun. And finishing old projects is just never as exciting as starting new ones, and the new projects on my to-do list all required more thinking than I wanted.

So instead, I turned to my pattern stash and pinterest. I’ve had this Truly Victorian pattern for a number of years, but I didn’t have plans in which it would fit yet. It was perfect for what I was looking for though, exciting, yet simple enough because I could just follow the pattern directly.

The other thing I’d been thinking about for a couple of years was a black and white striped dress. There’s just something about this type of fabric that the goth in me still really appreciates. I especially love the ones which combine the stripes with solid black, like this one:

So I ordered a pattern for a bodice, which was a little more interesting than the base pattern I already owned. Again: for the purpose of not having to change much, and just being able to make it up as it was intended. I settled on the Truly Victorian Senora bodice:

And I ordered some fabric swatches. I found black/white striped cotton. I wanted to pair it with solid black, to break it up a bit, but the solid black cotton didn’t quite give me the right feeling. While the striped cotton is printed, the black is probably dyed and it makes the color a bit less intense. It also was more loosely woven than I’d hoped. So instead, I went with a black poly taffeta from the same shop. I wasn’t quite ready to use my (much more expensive) black silk taffeta on this, and the poly stuff looks enough like the real deal from a distance. I also wouldn’t be using it for all of the bodice, which means that hopefully it will still be breathable enough.

And then I started to doodle around in photoshop! I wanted to try out which bits to make of which fabric, how to combine the stripes and the black. In the end, I settled on this design:

I cut the pattern and made a mock-up in the first weeks of October, after finishing the 1830’s dress. My fabric arrived half way through the month, after which I immediately started sewing.

I was aiming for about a month to make this, but it went so fast! Starting right after a holiday meant I had quite a bit of sewing energy, and having planned everything beforehand + working from patterns meant I could go full steam ahead, so that I was actually finished with the skirt within a week, and had the bodice ready in another. For me, this really is super fast. It did also really help that I went the ‘quick’ way on almost everything. Not bothering about too much stripe matching, hemming by machine, etc. Spending time on those things definitely give a costume an extra touch, but for this one, the goal was to make something fun, rather than something perfect.

As a final touch, I decided to get some bright orange ribbon and give the dress a seasonal vibe. I made a ton of bows, and pinned them all on the dress. They are all removable, which means I can still wear the dress out in a slightly more subtle version as well. They are quite fun though! For the pictures, I re-styled my 1870’s hat with some other trim (I saved the old one)

I think that after this, I’m ready to tackle some of my unfinished projects. This dress was really about instant gratification, and it did it’s job perfectly.

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1880’s Tennis dress

The 1880’s tennis dress is finished! I already wore it about a month ago, but without all of the trim. I since truly finished it and wore it again last weekend!

 

The idea of this dress started last summer, when I realized I did not have any Victorian dresses truly fit for summer weather. And that if you organize Victorian picnics, that is quite a handy thing to have as Dutch weather is most reliable in summer.

I’ve always loved the idea of the ‘sporting’ dresses which you see becoming more popular in the 1880’s. My main inspiration for this project was this dress in the Manchester Art Gallery:

Manchester Art Gallery

 

Although it, unfortunately, does not show any pictures of the back, it does feature a very good description. Including some interesting features. The skirt has boning in it (something also seen in this tennis dress at LACMA), so no separate bustle is necessary. The apron is actually one with the main skirt, while the back bustle is buttoned on over a back-closure. I incorporated all of these features in my skirt as well.

And, of course, I had to have striped fabric for this! Tennis dresses in pictures are nearly always either stripes or a light solid color. I found a lovely thin cotton with blue, red and white stripes, which was perfect for this project. I did line the bodice and skirt, as it is rather thin. The bodice was lined for structure, the skirt to support the weight of the ruffles.

The basic pattern of the skirt is TV261 – 1885 Four-Gore Underskirt. I sewed 3 horizontal bones in the back, and a fourth in a curve, similarly to the TV101 bustle. The bones are sandwiched between the main skirt fabric and lining. The fabric is gathered up to fit the bones, and three ties (one at the end of each bone) keep the curved shape behind the legs, similar to the LACMA dress. The apron I drafted myself, and is caught in the back-side seams of the main skirt. The skirt closes center back, and the slit is actually a bit shorter than I’d normally make it, as it needs to stop right before the first bone.

A close-up of the gathered channels with the boning, and the base skirt (sans hem and waistband at this point.

 

The back drape is very simple, and buttons on the waistband sides and back. I added pockets in the skirt on both sides, the entrance between the first and second horizontal bone. This works okay, but the pocket entry is rather narrow as it needed to fit between the bones. It’s good I have small hands, and I can’t fit very large things in it. It makes me wonder what the original’s pocket looks like, as I’m sure it’d need to be a tad bigger to fit a tennis ball.

The bodice base is TV462 – 1883 Tail Bodice, but without tail. The lining is fitted, while the striped fabric was extended (with a little guidance from Izabella Pritcher’s Victorian Dressmaker book), and gathered to the front. It buttons up front, and has a little lace around the collar and sleeves.

Below a picture of the bodice fronts, and sewing the button holes.

 

I wore the dress for the first time with the main bodice and skirt done, but without all the pleats on the skirts. These are 4 strips, with a 1cm hem and 2 1cm tucks, pleated down. They took a while (it was about 18m unpleated), but do really finish the dress!

I first pleated the strip and pinned it on both sides. Then the pleats were sewn down at the top, leaving the bottom pins in. I then sprayed it with a vinegar/water mix and ironed it. Then took out the bottom pins, sprayed and ironed that bit again. I used some painter’s tape to keep the bottom pleats in tape when sewing on the strips to the dress. They held up okay on wearing! Some of the pleats at the back were a bit mangled, but that was to be expected as I sat on them half of the day, and they were quite good about being ironed back into shape afterwards.

 

The pleats being sewn on, and a little close-up showing the the finished result and the tucks.

 

To finish the ensemble, I cut down the brim of a straw hat I had lying around, slightly curved up the back brim, and sewed on some big bows.

 

To finish off, some more pictures of the final dress on me! I wore it with a simple blue ribbon (leftover from trimming the hat) around the waist, but I might make an embroidered belt as the one on the original in the future.

 

Inspiration – Victorian summer dresses

It’s been unusually warm and dry here in the Netherlands (and in most of Europe, I believe). That’s gotten me thinking of light, summer style dresses. I don’t have any at the moment, all of mine are either silk, velvet or wool. So one of these might have to go onto the (long) list of things I want to make one day…

Last year I did a post on summer dresses of the period just before the Victorian age, so for this post, let’s look at some Victorian examples!

These dresses are all made of very light cotton. They protect the skin from the sun, and the white is relatively cool. The cotton is rather thin, and breathes well. Of course, a fashionable lady would still seek out the shade, and wear a bonnet and parasol as well to protect from the sun.

Some crinoline styles. In this era, flowers on white seem tho have been quite popular!

 

I particularly like the pin-tucks on this bodice.

 

Some nice stripy contrast!

 

 

 

Some solid white, as we’re moving into the bustle era.

 

But dots are nice too!

 

And, to finish, two more solid white dresses from the 1880’s this time

1880s Winter bustle – pictures

Yesterday I wore my 1880’s dress for the first time, to the Midwinter Fair. It was really nice to wear, and even though it was rainy I had a good time.

Because of said rain, we only took some pictures inside. By this time my curls had started to sag a bit, but I was quite happy with how my hair turned out. Not having bangs, I flipped two curls towards the front and pinned them in place underneath the hat. Looks ridiculous without the hat, but with hat you’d never know!

 

Today it’s been snowing all day. Snow doesn’t happen that much around here, and when it does it usually disappears very quickly again. So I thought I’d take advantage, and dragged my boyfriend outdoors for a couple of minutes to take some more pictures. I didn’t curl my hair this time, too much effort, but the braid this way also works okay. And the dress looks really pretty in the snow!

 

You can’t really see it in these pictures above, but I’m wearing my winter boots with them! Very nicely warm and comfy.

 

 

Some more pictures!

 

Construction post is here!

1880s Winter bustle – construction

If you’ve been following this blog you might remember that when I got the Victoria winter boots from American Duchess, it got me thinking of wintery wool bustle dresses.

The shoes. I’m still in love (and they’re so comfy and warm!)

 

So when I was making sewing plans in September, an 1880’s winter wool bustle dress was put on the list next to the golden 1660’s gown. I had an event to wear it to in December, so a good deadline as well!

I decided on making it in burgundy, with black faux fur and black trim. This was the plan.

 

It’s strongly inspired by fashion plates and pictures. The main inspiration was this one, mainly for the shape and fur placement.

 

But as I also really love the loopy trim that became popular, I wanted to incorporate that.

This plate is awsome as well.

 

And this is a great example of swirly trim.

 

The fabric I’m using is a wool/polyester mix. Not accurate of course, but it is a nice quality fabric still and has the advantage of being a bit cheaper than full wool. The fur trim is black faux fur.

 

Main construction was relatively straight forward. I used the 1880’s underskirt from Truly Victorian, which came together really quickly. Only change was that I added the pocket from the 1870’s underskirt, because pockets are awesome.

Pleating the back. They’re cartridge pleats, so much width had to be fit into the back normal pleats wouldn’t have worked. Pretty!

 

The bodice pattern was adapted from the 1883 tail bodice from TV. I took away the pleats in the back and lengthened it a bit. That lengthening caused it not to close in the bottom (I should’ve also added more width), but I actually really liked the look, so I kept it. Make a mistake and like the result anyway: just pretend it was done on purpose.

Fitting the bodice. Another mistake: making the mock-up of cotton instead of wool, which makes it looser. The wool version was a bit smaller, oops. It worked out in the end though.

 

The eventual shape of the bodice, falling open at the bottom. We’ll just pretend I planned it that way.

The overskirt I ended up draping myself, because I wanted that particular shape seen in the fashion plate. Took some fiddling with old sheets, but I’m quite happy with how it turned out.

Rather bad lighting, but the base of the under and overskirt together.

 

 

Then it was time for button holes! I spaced them really closely together, as seen on the photo I showed above. I didn’t have much overlap, so needed small buttons, and those always look better without too much space between them.

 

With the fur trim on it already looks almost done, but I wanted more trim, and loops, and more loops. I eventually got 50m of the cotton cord for a bargain, because I needed 30 and the whole roll was 50 and the seller didn’t really feel like unrolling so much.

The overskirt first got a velvet ribbon next to the fur, and then the cotton cord next to that, with a knot in the corners.

The inspiration for the knot:

 

The underskirt also got a velvet ribbon, but then more loopy trim and another cord above that. I made a template for this one to get the sizing the same everywhere. And it miraculously almost fitted around the whole skirt without weird overlaps being necessary! (I’d like to pretend that was measured out and done on purpose, but I was too lazy do do that so it was pure luck)

Template and chalk marks.

Done!

 

For the bodice I took the photo of the original bodice shown above as inspiration, but omitted some loops as my cord was a bit on the thick side.

Playing with the trim to settle on the design.

 

Finally, I trimmed the sleeves, and then decided the back was too empty, so I trimmed the back of the bodice as well.

 

And then it was done! I’ll be wearing the dress next weekend, so proper pictures of everything finished and worn will follow!

1870s Day/dinner Bodice

After I finished my 1870’s ballgown, I started thinking on making a day bodice to go with it. A fair number of existent dresses come with a bodice for day and one for evening. This way you basically have two dresses for different occasions, but only need one skirt! As skirts take up a lot of fabric, they would also have costed quite a lot. Having two bodices means you get more use out of it. For me, making my own dresses, it means I only need to make an extra bodice to open up a whole array of occasions to wear the skirts.

An existent example of day/dinner/evening dress combinations.

 

My design for the bodice was based around a couple of things. First, I knew I wanted a low, square neckline. These are more for dinner, or visiting dresses than for outside walking. However, you can add a gilet or chemisette to fill in the neckline and still wear it outside (as shown in the first existent dress of this post). I like versatility, so wanted to go this route. Because I owned the Truly Victorian 400 pattern, that decided the shape of the front, and I also used the peplum back.

This resulted in the base bodice! I flatlined the silk in white cotton first. Then I sewed the main seams and the darts. That’s where it went slightly wrong, because I hadn’t pinned the darts properly. After sewing, it became apparent that the silk had shifted and not all fabric was caught in te darts as should be. So, out came the seam ripper, and I took them out again. To prevent this from happening again, I first basted the darts this time. This fixed the problem. You can see how far off I was in this picture, the old puncture marks are where the first dart was, while the basting is a couple of mm inside the line of where it should be…

After getting this fixed, I could put in the sleeves and finish all the edges. The center front is finished by folding over the silk to the inside, the top and bottom I finished with bias binding. This was a first for me, before I always turned over the outer fabric to the inside. However, I’ll say that the bias facing is definitely easier, as it goes along the curves way better, so I’ll probably be doing this in the future!

The finished plain bodice:

 

And an inside view. All the seams are tacked in place to prevent fraying.

 

For trim, I had some lace left I’d used on the over skirt. I was further inspired by this dress:

 

I really love the cuffs, which seem to be fake, made out of trim only. I ended up making my fabric trim slighlty narrower, but it was made using a similar technique. I tried out something new for this trim, so the seams on the end of the fabric wouldn’t show. Don’t know if this is period, but it does give a nice result! It is best used for narrow trim though, as it’ll eat fabric when you make it very wide.

I started cutting strips of fabric, a little over 2x as wide as my eventual trim would need to be. I wanted 3cm wide trim, so I cut 7cm strips. I then folded the strip and hemmed the edge with a narrow hem. The next step was to iron the strip flat, so that the seam was in the center. I then sewed gathers along the top and bottom edge of the strip. And the final step is to gather the strip both top and bottom!

 

This trim still has a raw edge on the back, but as I’d be sewing it to the dress both top and bottom, this didn’t matter overly much. You could, in theory, turn the strip inside out before ironing and gathering. Mine were rather narrow though, so it would’ve been a bit of a pain and so I didn’t bother.

With the trim made, it was time to plan where to put it! I knew I wanted the cuffs and lace and trim around the neckline. Ideally also around the bottom, but I didn’t know if I’d have enough lace for that. I pinned the cuffs and neckline first, to see what was left.

In the end, I didn’t have enough lace to fully go around the bottom. I did really want it there as well though, if only to visually separate the bodice from the same-colored overskirt. So I ended up cutting the lace in half horizontally, and stitching the fabric trim on top to hide the edge. This makes for slighly more narrow lace at the bottom, but it worked! After pinning down everything, I spent a full day stitching it all down top and bottom. My fingers were rather sore afterwards from stitching through all those layers of densly woven silk. The result is definitely worth it though!

To finish the bodice, I covered some buttons with black silk I had a little of. The bodice closes with hooks and eyes, so the buttons are just there for visual interest. They do really add a nice touch I think!

Finished:

 

And some detail shots:

 

Let’s hope it stays dry this weekend, because there’s an event I’d love to wear this to. Pictures with the whole day-version of the dress will follow when that happens!

Of ballgowns and trains

The early 1870’s fashion absolutely loved its trained gowns. I followed that when designing the train for my own ball gown, I knew I really wanted to have one.

My train

Although practical and train-less dresses do exist they are a lot more difficult to find than their trained counterparts. Small trains were even worn for morning wear, and there’s plenty examples of walking dressed (obviously meant to wear out of the house), still with a small train. And you can be sure those wouldn’t always only be worn on perfectly clean pavements!

Just to avoid those images which might have the label ‘walking dress’ stuck to them without provenance, an example with the text next to the fashion plate. A walking dress for winter, you can be sure that train didn’t keep clean!

 

You can imagine that if an informal morning dress has a train, that an evening dress or ball gown would practically always be trained. For a formal event, or attending the opera that’d be fine, but for a ball one needs to be able to dance. In a waltz, that includes being able to step backwards without tripping over your dress.

This train is stunning, but there’s no way I’d be able to waltz in this as it is.

Met Museum

 

So two questions arise: how do you keep your train clean, and how do you avoid stepping on it? Both questions are now rather relevant for me, as I’m wearing my 1870s ballgown to a ball this May, and I definitely want to dance!

The first answer to keeping your train clean, is to add a balayeuse. Or, in English, a dust ruffler. A balayeuse is basically a separate piece of fabric, attached to the underside of the train. It makes sure the train fabric itself doesn’t touch the floor, and it gets dirty instead. The idea is that it’s detachable, either by buttons or just unpicking some stitches, so you can wash the balayeuse without having to wash your train.

This image is from the late 1870’s, but it shows the general idea. A separate panel attaches to the underside of the train. This one seems to have a lace layer ‘on top’ between the balayeuse and the floor.

 

Not all balayeuses were totally practical, especially for evening dresses they could be made of layers of lace, peeking out underneath the hem. After all, your ballgown is generally only worn inside, so it wouldn’t get quite as dirty as outside.

So that takes care of the dirt, but what about the dancing?

First thing to keep in mind is that not all evening occasions would be balls, so it wasn’t always necessary for an evening gown to be fit for dancing. However, if it needed to be, the practical solution was to simply bustle up the train!

Now, annoyingly, I couldn’t actually find period images of the same dress (either fashion plate or existant) with either a long train or a bustled up one. I’m pretty sure they did this though, so if anyone has a source I’d love to know!

I rather suspect this dress though, but alas, only one photo I know of exists…

Worth dress, Kyoto fashion institute

 

Aside from bustling up the whole train, one could also use a ‘loop’ to hold it up while dancing. I found this wonderful image showing the process.

Sold by Augusta Auctions

 

So, back to my own gown! In the end, I decided to make both a balayeuse and a method to bustle up my train. The way I ended up bustling it it still drags just a little bit, so the balayeuse protects the edge on the ground.

The balayeuse I made is rather simple, I just traced the part which was on the ground in white cotton, and then made ruffled strips of pinked fabric to stitch onto it in half circles. Credit for the method goes to Prior Attire, who has a tutorial here.

 

It attaches to the train with buttons. The button holes are on the balayeuse, the buttons on the underside on the train. (Obviously, as otherwise there’d be holes in my train).

To bustle up the train I played around with the fabric a bit. In the end, I attached two small strips with button holes to the sides of the train. These attach to a button at the sides of my overskirt. Since my train is attached to the overskirt in the first place, this is a good way to pull up the sides. For the center I sewed a strip of cotton tape to the middle with button holes. I then sewed buttons to the train, spaced wider than the holes in the strip. This way the train bustles up evenly in the center.

The proper look:

 

 

And because I love inside-out views, one of the train. Left two are bustled up, right is let down. That weird ‘swag’ on the side is hidden by the overskirt when worn right.