1790s Round Gown using a Sari (or Saree)

The Greater Louisville Region of the Jane Austen Society of North America has monthly meetings, and at those meetings--occasionally--we have "Regency Rummage Sales" where members can sell and buy any number of costuming or Jane-related items. I snagged a lovely aqua vintage sari at one of these sales with the notion of making a 1790s round gown.

Round gowns of the last decade in the 18th century seem transitional between chemise gowns of earlier and the more columnar, Greco-Roman, neoclassical silhouettes of the early 19th century. They could be white or colorful, often made of Indian block-printed cottons and silks. Were they made of actual saris then? I can't yet find any confirmation of this hypothesis, but they were certainly made of fabrics from India. Here are a few examples from fashion plates:

And a few of my favorite extant examples:

Kyoto Costume Institute

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Daughters of the American Revolution Museum

That last one, from DAR, is mind-bogglingly gorgeous, and I got to see it in person at the "An Agreeable Tyrant" exhibit when I went to present at the 2016 JASNA AGM in D.C.!!!!!!!!! *sigh

So I was inspired to start this sewing adventure by my urgent need for a new ball gown for the 2019 Jane Fest in Louisville, the extants and fashion plates, and the release of this Simplicity Pattern by American Duchess! I could not decide whether I wanted a white undergown and an open robe made with the sari until I remembered that Louisville in July = HOT HOT HOT. So I nixed the open robe and made the gown with shorter sleeves. 

I made a quick mock-up to make sure the bodice fit, and it was way too "fluffy" at the front because I am not highly endowed in that area and rather narrow, anyway. This is a perpetual problem I have with commercial patterns and why I will now and forever make mock-ups! I reduced the width of fabric gathered at the front and made another mock-up.

Time to proceed with my sari. Very nerve-wracking since there is only so much of it, and there are different patterns in the middle and on the edge, which then translate into the design of the dress. I used the stiffer edge fabric for the bodice, and the top and bottom of the skirt.

 Bodice pieces together, ready for sleevils! 

 Machine-sewn channel in the linen lining--I used very thin lining to prevent too much bunching.

 This neckline is more "plunging" than I am used to, but seems appropriate for evening wear. I pinned it to my stays to prevent wardrobe malfunctions. I used almost the entirety of the rest of the sari to make the skirt. I kept thinking it was a bit too full, but the roundness does fit with the fashion plates. It is just an odd silhouette to modern eyes.

The pattern of the fabric disguises the pretty seams, but oh well. I look a bit like a floofy mermaid but the billowing, lightweight fabric feels so nice even in a hot ballroom. 

I pinned up the skirt at the ball because it is a tad long for dancing. Overall, I love this pattern and plan to use it again to make a white gown and a proper open robe with another sari!

My First Regency White Gown: Fig Leaf Patterns 220

A white evening gown is the "little black dress" of the Regency period. I resisted making one for a long time because white seems so unpractical for someone prone to spilling tea. But the gowns' impracticality is part of the point--white gowns illuminate the wearer's status as someone wealthy enough to avoid dirty labor and to employ a good laundress. Petticoats "six inches deep in mud," anyone? I do a lot of dirty work in my garden and I do my own laundry, but part of the fun of historical costuming is our ability to enact some of the history (pretty dresses) while acknowledging but not living all of the realities.

Here are some lovely evening or special occasion gowns that are all or mostly white:

Portrait of Félicité-Louise de Durfort, Maréchale de Beurnonville (1808)

 Costume Parisien, 1817

Wedding dress, 1807, Victoria & Albert Museum

Ackermann's Repository, 1817

I finally wore one myself at the 2018 Jane Austen Festival in Louisville where I volunteered as a Regency Style Show model for the maker of so many gorgeous gowns, Betsy Bashore.

I loved wearing this gown and wool military spencer (and that hat!!!), but notice how the gown doesn't fit well? Not surprising given that I do not quite make the size requirement for models, but I make up for it in enthusiasm. Anyway, wearing the white gown made me decide I needed to make one for myself. Pattern? Fabric? So many choices! I bought some cotton voile and held onto it for months before I saw Jessica Quirk in a white gown at Mackenzie's Fig Leaf Patterns tent at the Jane Austen Festival in Louisville in 2019--the gown was gorgeous, and she gushed over Mackenzie's pattern #220. As soon as she left, I bought the same pattern so I could make one of my own!

The gown is based on the extant in silk taffeta at the Fashion Archives & Museum at Shippensburg University. I love the interesting pleating at the sleeves!

Taffeta is more robust than cotton voile, so I lined the sleeves and bodice in cotton muslin. This also made the bodice less sheer. First, I made a mock-up to test the bodice and sleeve-head fit--using an old sheet. It worked very well, so on to the fashion fabric!

I had no trouble with the pleating in the front or on the sleeves. I sewed the skirt panels together bottom to top, which may go against general sewing advice, but I wanted to line up the bottoms where I had marked the lines for tucks. I found significant differences in the lengths of the skirt panels at the top--possibly due to my error, but I am going to true up the skirt pattern seams before I make this gown again (in actual silk taffeta). I just cut them to be even, and sort of guess at curves. It turned out fine, and I was able to make several tucks at the bottom of the skirt.

Like all Regency gowns, a petticoat helps with the shape of the skirts. I needed to make a bodiced petticoat for this gown anyway because the voile is so sheer and I do not want to look like this 1810 cartoon by James Gillray:

I used laughing Moon Mercantile pattern # 132 for the bodiced petticoat, which I made out of linen. It worked up very quickly because it is mostly machine-sewn!

I also made a quick open robe without sleeves (and just one length of my silk fabric (given to me by my dear friend, Christine of @sewstine) so I would not have to hem the front edges--yay selvages!), and I mean QUICK--less than 4 hours! I used Simplicity S8941 (by American Duchess).

Now I am ready for Regency evening festivities like the JASNA Winter Ball with Zack Pinsent in Louisville!

I definitely want to make another white Regency gown for day wear with less puffy sleeves that will easily fit in a spencer, and I plan on using FLP 220 again in silk!

My second Italian gown. Or, can I make a dress in a week?

My friend Erin and I were going to the Saint Louis Opera in June of 2019 and decided we both needed new eighteenth-century gowns. Italian gowns, that is. We had a week (or two?--this was 6 months ago and I really need to write these blogs immediately after finishing a project) but encouraged each other to go for it. Yeah, the time limit was stressful, but I did enjoy messaging with Erin about progress in real time! Are you to the pleating yet? NO, are you?! NO! Aaahhhhhhhhh!

We both used the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking. We also both used IKEA duvet covers! I'd had my eye on this one for a while, and finally found it while in Cincinnati visiting family:

Also, I wanted to see if I could improve on my sleeve game (without actually following any of the advice I'd read about sleeves... so it didn't work).

I started with a split bum, and actually used the fabric from the underside of the duvet cover. Cork would have been more historically accurate as stuffage (technical term--okay, no, I made it up). Or feather down. But I used polyester fill so I could sit on pillows at the opera.

Stinkerbelle helped:

Then the petticoat over the split bum. I found the process of pleating rather soothing now that I know how to do it, but getting them to lay right at the waistband took a while:

I could have made it shorter to show off my cute American Duchess shoes, but I was afraid it would be too short.

Then on to the gown! The floral fabric is 100% cotton, but so tightly woven that it is actually a pain in the butt to sew by hand.

First the back:

Then the other back seams:

Then to add the bodice front and side... things. Frontsides? Here is where I SHOULD have done some fitting, but I assumed it would work because it did on my other Italian gown. However, I used a heavy linen (so wibbly wobbly) on the previous gown, and a much lighter one as the lining for this one. MISTAKE. I would go back to the heavy linen if I were to revisit this gown, which I think I had better. The light linen was easier to sew, but less helpful in keeping the desired structure and lack of wrinkles in the bodice.

I slapped on the sleeves and tried it on over the stays and said "Good enough" because I was running out of time. See how the sleeves are off the shoulders and there are bulges at the neckline? Eep.

But I enjoyed the pleating again, and the beauty of that back skirt seam!

Wah-lah! A duvet cover gown! The blue petticoat looks a bit bright, but I still like it.

To deal with the weird gaping at the neckline, I shoved a fichu in there:

And again, all looked okay if I squinted:

And the opera was glorious! And look at Erin's gown!! (far left in the picture below).