1820s SILHOUETTE OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD, or is it?

 Since I’m still not sewing, I did some research to educate myself on the 1820s dresses. I keep hoping that the more I look at dresses I want to make, the more the enthusiasm will build up where I will actually start them. I even share a photo of dresses I’ve saved in my Make Me file on Facebook each day in the same hopes. So far, not much luck there.

I’ve had two mourning dresses from the 1820s in my Make Me file for a few years, and recently I decided to try and find out more about the silhouette of them. This era did a 180 degree turn from the simple and narrow Regency classicism style. I knew they had a lot of fluffy trims around the hemline, done in a variety of ways, and that the waistline was coming down from the empire waist of the 1810-1820 Regency style to almost the waist. But what surprised me was they looked so similar to what I’d been looking at and making from the 1830s. The big puffy sleeves, the hairstyles and hats were throwing me off. Then I realized that I may have been thinking some of the pictures I’d seen, that I had automatically dated as early to mid to late 1830s, could actually have been the 1820s. So, were they? Very confusing. These are the two dresses that started me on this path, dated 1825 & 1827, that I wanted to make. I’ve worn that same hair style and turban with my 1835 dresses that I copied from fashion plates of that later time period. Was I wrong?

For comparison, these are two fashion plates from 1820s and 1839. Pretty similar, don’t you think?

Now that I’ve been digging around on Pinterest and the internet, I’m starting to see the differences. First off, in subtle differences, 1820s skirts weren’t as full. They were slightly flared with gores on the sides, and the fullness was pulled and gathered to the back. And they didn’t have off-the-shoulder necklines. The sleeves were puffed at the top. And then of course, 1820s skirts had all kinds of fancy trimming along the hemline. From these two fashion plates, an 1824 day dress, and 1825 promenade dress, you can definitely see the waistline isn’t AT the waist yet, as it will be in the 1830s. Both of these were also in my Make Me file where the one with scallops would be made in a cotton print, and I must have a pumpkin-colored pelisse-robe that was a popular day dress style.

This is where a lot of the whackiness comes in, both in trims and hats.

And, of course, I must have a black one. I think I have at least one black one in every decade that I want to make.

From FIT NYC, they described the changes towards the end of the 1820s.

https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1820-1829/

As the waistline dropped, the skirt and sleeves widened; by 1825, the early Romantic silhouette was established with a natural waistline, large puffed sleeves, and a wide skirt with an increasing number of gores. Through the second half of the 1820s, this silhouette only became more exaggerated. The breadth of sleeves grew exponentially into true gigot or leg-o-mutton styles by 1827, and skirts became so wide that gores were no longer enough and the volume of material began to be pleated into the waistband in 1828. When the decade drew to a close, the waistline was tightly cinched, skirts had expanded into a wide bell, and the gigot sleeve had reached such epic proportions that “the upper arm appeared to be quite double the size of the waist.

So, doesn’t that sound like they’re describing dresses in the 1830s too? I’m so confused.

And this was their description of the skirt and bodice trims:

Three-dimensional trim and decoration lavished dresses in the 1820s. Skirts in particular were festooned with layers of decoration on the hem; a trend of frills and tucks began in the previous decade, but in the early 1820s this blossomed into elaborate trims of lace and flounces, puffs, and rouleaux which were tubes of bias-cut fabric filled with wadding to create a firm roll. This weighty decoration caused hemlines to shorten above the floor, and hemlines were padded with cotton or wool.

In the last years…..trim on the bodice tended to point downwards to converge at the waist. Sleeves became elaborately decorated as well, and could feature imitations of slashing, puffs, and sleeve caps, or mancherons. Edges finished with deep points were called “vandyck points,” a reference to seventeenth-century artist Anthony van Dyck whose portraits served as inspiration. Early 1820s, day dresses were often completed with a ruff at the neck.

Later in the decade, wide, white pelerines were worn which echoed the “falling band” of the seventeenth century. There was a particular style of day dress that should also be noted: the pelisse-robe. Derived from the pelisse, a type of long coat, the pelisse-robe was a coat-dress worn especially in the morning for walking. In the evening, necklines lowered, and sleeves generally shortened, although in the early 1820s, long sleeves were sometimes seen. It was especially stylish to wear a short sleeve covered with or attaching to a long, transparent sleeve of gauze or net.“

Ok, so now this sounds more definitive of the 1820s, and a way to separate the styles of each decade.

From there, I looked at the hats and hair. This is from 1828. Once again, they confused me. This is what I saw being worn in the 1830s too, including the hairstyles. The first is 1828, the second & third, 1830s.

At least one thing was consistent; they’re still wearing the earlier Regency period corsets. The underpinnings could be another blog post. I haven’t made an 1820s dress yet, but I’ve worn my later Victorian corset under my 1830s dresses. This one is dated from 1825 to 1835.

So, out of all this confusion, comes a thought. The Romantic Period was the ENTIRE TWO DECADES OF 1820 AND 1830, with the styles basically the same instead of changing every 10 years like they often do. But with a few subtle differences to the skirt and some trims. So, there you have it. Its as plain as mud, don’t you think? 

BEGINNING STAGES OF MY 1830s PROJECT FOR 2020

 What do you do when you don’t feel like sewing, or have any enthusiasm to even try?

You plan.  So, I’m just going to show you some pretty pictures and fabrics, and that will have to suffice for now. Who knows, it may inspire me to do something. No promises but maybe some baby steps.

While my 1860s Project has fizzled (in truth, I am doing some cartridge pleating on the 3 skirts but haphazardly), I went forward on planning my 1830s Project of cutting and sewing 3-4-5, maybe 6, at a time. I’m undecided at this point which of my plaid silk taffetas I want to attack first, so it may just be 4.

First thing I did was gather all my dress photos that I wanted to make and decided what style to do. I’ve done about 4 of the pleated front bodices, so I want to try a crossover style, and a V-neck style. I’m a little tired of the off-the-shoulder styles. AND I want to be able to close them IN FRONT!!

Oh heck, let’s just throw in a mourning dress, and maybe an archery dress, although I don’t do archery but I can carry an arrow around with me.

And trust me, I have enough fabric in my stash, including some solids, to make all these plus a few more.

 

  

It’s the necklines that are going to confound me. I’ve got a couple different patterns I haven’t used yet but none are quite what I want, so it’s going to take some altering.

This Period Impressions pattern 1837 Day dress has a front seam that could be changed to be opened, and it’s got those cute sleeve finishes.  Past Patterns #806 Lowell Mill Dress, also has cute sleeves and I bet I could change the front to a front closure but don’t like that straight neckline.

 

Surprisingly this Butterick 5832, which was copied off an 1841 extant dress, could be used for the V-neckline. I haven’t pulled out the pattern yet so I don’t know if it’s actually pleated in front or if that’s an overlay. And I might be able to extend it to make it a crossover, like this 1838 extant dress. It’s got cute sleeves too. Then someone pointed out View C on this Laughing Moon pattern #103 that has a crossover bodice that might help in my construction, even though its 1890s. As more ideas come in for doing this, the more excited I get. It takes a bit of the scary out of it. 

 

 

Speaking of scary; I keep saying I want to make those gathered/smocked sleeves but when it comes right down to it, they look scary. I haven’t found any directions yet how they do those. I’m assuming you cut out the humongous sleeve, then cartridge-pleat/smock wherever you want it, either from the shoulders down, or mid-upper arm, then sew the sleeve seams together. Inquiring minds want to know. I don’t know of anyone who’s tried them yet. I think possibly just gathering them down and putting a ruffle around the bottom might work too. This extant dress shows off the smocking very well. I would also LOVE to find fabric like that. I can’t believe how brilliantly colorful it still is. And again, this makes me want to go fabric shopping, for yet MORE fabric. 

And now, let's talk pelerines! I have a couple antique ones but have been thinking about making some myself. This one from the series Gentleman Jack, looks like one I would enjoy making, and that bonnet included.

These antique ones would be good shapes to try also. Its easier to add ruffles to these than to find an embroidered fabric you could use.

I ran across this one on Pinterest. It has a wide ruffle but finished with a delicate lace trim.

These two are interesting, both from 1837, and the longer one would be fun.

The trick to making these is to shape the pattern to have a curved neck. Otherwise it bunches up around your neck. This photo of the one I own shows that shape. I’ve since done a repair on the little tear with as tiny stitches as I could possibly do, so it wouldn’t tear further. I only wear it for short periods of time, or for fashion shows.

I may have some extra fine cotton voile in my stash somewhere to get started on one of these. And the easiest one to start would be using the pattern I made off of my antique one. Small hand projects seems to be the way to go these days as they don’t seem to be too overwhelming. I’ve still been hand sewing 18^th C kerchiefs and selling them almost as soon as I post one, so I’d like to give the 1830s ones a try too.   

 

 

 

 

 

A TRIO OF 1860s DRESSES ON MY ASSEMBLY LINE

My last post was in May. You’d think by now I’d have a lot more sewing done, what with no costume events, no sewing workshops, no picnics or teas, no fashion shows, no nothing. And that’s about how much sewing enthusiasm I had. Nothing.

Towards the end of June as some businesses and locations were starting to open up (yay, a haircut finally!) my friend Shelley announced she would be able to host a sewing workshop in her church hall where we could socially distance, with a limited number of people. People! We would get to see and talk to people! One of the ideas I’d had for sewing was my new Truly Victorian pattern, #452 for an 1860s Work dress. I liked the gathered front bodice of it, and I wanted to try another one, especially after liking the Simplicity 4551 dress. Except after I’d ordered the work dress, I realized I also had TV 447, the 1863 sheer bodice dress, which was almost the same, and I could have used that. Oh well.

I looked through my fabric stash photos and picked out three, yes three, fabrics, because I was going to cut them all out and then assemble them all together. I would sew all the bodice seams, then the sleeves & cuffs, then attach all those to their bodices, then sew up the skirt seams, and basically just construct the body of the dress. At some point in time, I will pick which one I want to finish first, and then decide on the collar, buttons, and any trims. These aren’t going to be “work dresses” because I don’t plan to make them as that.

Honestly, I can’t even decide which is my favorite fabric. I’ve always loved the red and pink feather design one, and have had that the longest. But I go back and forth between the two blues. The dark blue looks more of a winter color, and the blocked blue on white print is a fine cotton voile from India, so a summer dress.

By going to a sewing workshop, I would be able to sew up my fitting muslin, getting it fitted to me, and work out any bugs. After reading the pattern directions, I realized it had an inside fitted bodice, which I didn’t want to do. I was going to just flatline my fabric with a fine cotton twill to give it body.

After I sewed my muslin together, Shelley noticed that I had pleated the front too far apart between the center and the sides. She said it should actually be gathered and the gathers should be pulled as tightly close to the center front as possible. That was an easy fix. I was able to flat line my three bodices and sew up the side and shoulder seams in class.

In the next few days, I tore my lengths of fabric for my skirts, using 3 ½ panels, and sewed up the side seams on those. I’m going to try the dogleg closure on the skirt waistband and bodice this time so they close in the front as one piece, instead of a skirt and bodice.

And that’s as far as I got by July 1^st. 

I went almost a full month before I even felt like sewing up my sleeves and cuffs. The cuffs are extremely narrow, about 2” wide, and the bishop sleeves are very full and blousy at the cuff. Except when I put them on, I felt like I was in a clown suit, and probably would be knocking things over waving my arms as I tend to do. So, I l un-stitched them, and laid them out flat, cut off 2” from each side, for a total of 4”, and sewed them back up. Then they were much better proportioned to me but still full. I sewed them to my bodice, and again, that’s as far as I got.  At this point I decided I would now set them aside to finish later, and pull out three fabrics for some 1830s dresses. My thoughts are I can use up my stash.

Fast forward almost another month, and I thought it was about time I put these on my dress form so I could see what they looked like and take photos of them to show I’d been doing some sewing at least. I was also going to be doing a Zoom class online and after seeing some other people doing theirs, I like the idea of one of my dresses being seen in the background, especially since I would be doing it from my sewing room, and didn’t want the room to look too busy. So here I have each one displayed. The skirts are not cartridge-pleated yet, so I just pinned them to the waist, and added a black belt I had. I’m in the process of ordering some pretty belts from Kristen at Black Orchid, one in red, another in navy blue. This is one of her brown ones, and one of the dresses she made. 

Black Orchid   on etsy. 

I think I could actually interchange both the red and blue colors between the dresses to give them a different look. I also need to make their buttonholes and buttons, and some white collars for each of them.

After watching a bunch of videos and class presentations from both CGW’s Costume Retreat classes and CoCoVid videos last weekend (not affiliated with Costume College/CoCo) I felt a surge of enthusiasm to sew again. Yay! That’s what happens usually when we go to events or classes.

As soon as I’m done with a couple special orders of 18^th C. kerchiefs that I’m hand sewing, I’ll start on the cartridge pleating of these, since I like to have handwork at night while watching TV.

And it looks like I’m going to be doing my presentation to the San Diego DAR in October also online. Its going to be a Powerpoint historical fashion show, similar to what I did for them a couple years ago but this time with no live bodies wearing the clothes. At least I still have a few months to work on it, and get better at using Zoom. 

In the meantime, I’m collecting my ideas and photos together for the now four 1830s dresses I want to cut out and do the same assembly line sewing with them. I plan on altering some of them to close in the front since I can’t even fit these on me or put them on without help.

This tote bag was where I would throw my fabric scraps in that eventually made it in the trash, but Chloe has turned it into her sleeping bag.