1770s Gown

5/20

This was my big Pandemic Project - in between making masks I worked on this as my sanity-saving project for about a month. It was made entirely from things in my stash - extra fabric mistakenly shipped from my 1860s Ball Gown plus the leftover silk organza from my butterfly hennin. I started with a pattern from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 3, the 1770-75 Sack Dress (pg 35), but I really wanted a separate stomacher so I made a few tweaks. It consists of a petticoat, stomacher, and open-front gown. My target date was 1770s because I have no actual reason to wear this anywhere so I figured I'd go with what I liked the look of.

I had to make a few other changes due to materials. I really wanted to make very full circular engageantes, the white ruffles at the sleeves, like this example from The Met (image used by permission)

but I had nothing in my stash that had the correct texture and size. I finally settled on some scraps of silk organza about 10 inches wide, but this limited the shape to be rectangular rather than oval. I might go back and make new ones once the pandemic is over and I can go shopping in person again.

Very awesome thing - it has pockets! Well, it has slits in the overgown, petticoat, and hoop that let me hang a detached pocket on the inside, which is quite useful.

For the decorations I looked at a variety of extant gowns and paintings, my Pinterest board can be found here. I ended up using gathered ruffles for the petticoat and stomacher, and pleated trim for the gown.

The V&A and the Met both have many lovely inspirations for styles of decorating the dress.

Image courtesy of the V&A, English Sack Gown Images Courtesy of The Met, Robe à la Française, Dress 1775

I did add back-lacing underneath the pleats to give me some flexibility of fitting after seeing it in several costumer's dress diaries, such as Brocade Goddess.

I am currently using some very old underpinnings I made way back in high school around 2005/2006 when I first was getting into historical costuming - a pair of stays from the Leloir pattern and basic pocket hoops (which I can no longer find the patterns I used online). I need to make a larger hoop, but the stays still work surprisingly well other than the poor quality metal eyelets I used back then.

Overall this was a very fun project, and I'm really hoping I can come up with some excuse to wear it other than swanning about my parlor.

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