An 1870s First Bustle Era ball gown

For the last few months I've been sewing, sewing, and then some more, and haven't been writing...at all. Now that the ball is over I can write about what I've been doing for the last 4 months.

I've written a post about the undergarments, the two corsets, and the bustle cages. This is the post about the evening gown.

Last year I opted for a lovely red 100% silk taffeta, and everyone who is reading this knows that silk can cost a pretty penny. Thankfully, tafetta isn't nearly as expensive as Duchesse satin, or some other types of silk.  Unfortunately, because it was a crinoline era dress I had to buy quite a lot. I think I still have some left over, perhaps even enough to make a day bodice, we'll see, but it's not on my list of things to do this year.  When I was designing the gown for this year's ball fashion plates were my go to resource, and my pinterest is now full of them.

As you may know the first bustle era is all about the floofs, gathers, pleats, ruffles, and trim. The popular ensemble includes underskirt, overskirt in an apron shape, train on evening wear, and bodice that still sits off shoulder. As much as I love these styles, my experience with an apron fronted skirt wasn't the best, so what was the alternative?

Inspiration for my ball gown was the lovely dress on the right

An open fronted one-piece bodice/overskirt. I could minimise bulk on the waist by not having a waistband and just having the overskirt attached to the bodice. I even like the colour on this fashion plate. I have no issue with off-shoulder bodices, but I kept seeing square necklines.

I thought, I love square necklines! I'll admit now that I didn't quite get it right. What I found out much later, after purchasing one of Waugh's books, was that it is square, but the straps slope towards the shoulders, and aren't straight like the ones I had drafted. Being modest, or possibly scared, I didn't dare do my front neckline as low as the ones in the plates. What I also didn't do was decorate it to kingdom come. I'm a simple seamstress, I like the fabrics to speak for themselves, and the colour not to be overpowered by trim. The other explanation is that I just could not be arsed. Last year my dress was such a rich red that I didn't really need to trim it, not to mention crinoline dresses from mid-1860s don't tend to be too heavy with the embellishment. I had no such excuse this time, I was just lazy and unimaginative.

My initial sketches, which I'm not brave enough to show, designed the bodice/overskirt with a small train. Due to a mistake (I didn't put the final dress over a fully kitted out mannequin) I thought the train looked a bit sad, and so I just added it to the polonaise.

For the skirt I used TV201, and for the bodice I used a mash-up of TV410, and TV442 (which I used last year).

TV201: 1870s underskirt with optional bottom ruffle

I'll tackle the skirt first since that was the easiest thing. I had already made the petticoat (x2) from this pattern, so its just 4 shaped panels (front, side front, and side back), and one rectangle for the back, gathered to fit the waistband. I made it out of 100% pale blue cotton. The ruffle is 5 rectangles, sewn together and then hand gathered because I can't seem to get my gathering foot to work on my machine (another task for post-ball sewing). The most annoying bit was perhaps facing the hem. Because the hem ir curved from about 1860 onwards, it means that the hem has to be faced using bias strips, and I hate cutting bias strips. The protractor and ruler came out and everything. This is the first time I've actually made bias strips properly. You have to square them off (as most, if not all, will end in triangles), and then put them together at the ends so they're perpendicular, and then sew from one corner to its diagonal. You face hems to give it a bit more kick, or to stabilise it. See more at historical sewing.

Cut off ends

Sew together from one point to its diagonal, and cut off excess

I added royal blue satin ribbon at the top of the ruffle to hide the gathering and sewing stitches, and to fancy it up a bit because it was looking a bit plain i decorated it with royal blue lace just above the ruffle. I didn't flatline this because it is an underskirt, and I thought that if I underlined it with cotton it might become too heavy, especially with that ruffle.

Now for the bodice. I dug out last year's pattern which is off the shoulder, and traced around the new polonaise one, creating a seperate copy which ended at the waist. What I didn't expect to find on the polonaise one was that as well as front darts, the front piece was in 2 pieces. Screw that, I said. Last year's bodice fitted me perfectly, so all I really needed to do was change the neckline. After a lot of faffing, tracing, and measuring I ended up with a mock up, then another, and then a third which was perfect.

Unlike last year's I wanted this year's to be front opening, which is kind of ironic considering I knew I was house sharing this year with people on hand to lace me in, unlike last year when I was on my own. Needless to say I made a front opening on this bodice. The fabric I used was a lovely quilting cotton, which I had expected to be much sturdier than it was. It was thinner than the cotton I used for the skirt! It's currently sold out, but you may have more luck getting it in America since it was an American company that made it.

I wanted a teal/turquoise dress last year but couldn't find the right shade of taffeta. When I saw this I knew I had to have it, the bonus was that it was on sale at £5 per metre. Why did I have to spend upwards of £30 p/m for silk when this was so gorgeous? I am not the proud owner of the light green, and red shades of this fabric. I got to work cutting out, measuring darts. I unfortunately took the bodice in too much at the sides. It still fit, but boy was it snug, so much so I was fearing for the tiny self-cover buttons I had bought.

A very tight bodice, barely pinned together, flatlined to the waist with cotton lawn

A quick rant about buttons ahead. Self-cover buttons only come in the shank version, and as I was looking at these plastic tiny buttons I just had this awful vision of them popping open at every opportunity. I wanted buttons down the front, and could get this 1 of two ways. Real button and buttonholes, or false buttons over real hooks and eyes. I hate hooks and eyes, they're fiddly as hell and I can never quite manage to hide them/get the necessary overlap. I hastily took to Ebay looking for buttons with holes in them, much sturdier in my opinion. I have enough faith in my ability to secure buttons really well that I wouldn't worry about the strain they'd take.

Polonaising the back

 In the end I took out the side seams by a quarter of an inch and it fitted better. I found an assortment of shell buttons that came in the perfect shade of green, and so it turned out of purple, but I'll get onto that in another post. I bought two bags as it was a random mixture. I needed 8 buttons, of 2 bags I only managed to get 7. Thankfully there was a pale blue colour so I stole one of those buttons.

For the sleeves I did normal puffs, none of this puffed sleeve to fitted lining nonsense of last year. To me sleeves on bodices don't look that puffed for the 1870s evening wear. I had a last minute design change. It just so happened i had bought some cream satin bias binding for my disastrous corset, and that was what was on hand when I was finishing the sleeves. The cream is more of a gold colour in my opinion and as I was folding it under to completely hide it, I realised that using it as a sleeve band instead was quite nice. The contrast between the teal and the gold was stunning. So I left the bias binding visible, and had an idea for the belt. So I purchased one metre of cream/gold silk taffeta to make a belt (that due to measuring error didn't fit properly).

The back panel is flatlined with silk organza because it's quite stiff and would support the poofs, that's what I read anyway, but I wasn't impressed. I flatlined the corresponding panel on the day dress with cotton organdy and was much more satisfied. I've learned now.

Polonaise-d using cotton tape

Hem facing, attached by machine because I was covering the bottom with a ruffle

I bound the neckline with bias binding, cut from the cotton so it wouldn't show. I'm still not that good with feeding binding around corners, luckily it didn't really matter because I was putting lace on the neckline, which covered up the fudging on the corners.

I pressed seams open, except for the front darts which were too narrow. I began to lose steam with this project by the time it came to finishing the seams and adding boning. I stitched down the front darts towards the side seams and inserted thin spiral steel bones on 2/4 because they were the only ones narrow enough to fit in the seam allowance, and only 2 because I only had 2 bones that weren't too long. For the side seams and the curved back ones I stitched on tubular boning tape and added normal sized (7mm) spiral steel bones.

The finishing touch was a badly measured silk taffeta belt that was cut the same way as a waistband. I must have forgotten to add ease, or sewn the seam too large, whatever the reason there was no overlap on the belt, so no hooks and eyes. I solved this fitting issue by adding two pieces of ribbon to the ends and tying them together in a very chinese/oriental belt style manner. The second was a ribbon-y thing at the back of the bustle just for a splash of a different colour. I also saw someone else at the ball who'd had the exact same level of thinking.

 And all was finished with the evening attire.

Not a chemise sleeve in sight, however I didn't quite manage to get through the night without at least 1 wardrobe malfunction. I was dancing in a set when I heard the very distinctive clattering of a metal bone on the floor. When I looked down there was one of the white steel bones I'd put in my bustle. The stitching to close the boning channel had either not been good enough or it had come undone, whatever reason I carried a steel bone home. The other minor one was one of the thin bones in the front darts started to fall out. All in all, it was definitely better than last years, I definitely prefer dancing in the bustle.

Am I happy with it? Meh. I hate that word, but I can't think of a better one. I'm not as proud of it as last year's one, nor do I think it's as aesthetically pleasing. There's something about its plainness I don't like, I also think it looks like I put minimal effort in, because I did. There's something about this dress that doesn't sit right with me. I think because it was in cotton it took the pressure off to make it amazing. Next year I'll return to silk and see what happens. Perhaps I need the knowledge of a lot of ££ per metre for me to make that extra effort. I still love the fabric, but the skirt needs more decoration, and there's just something missing on the front of the bodice. Very plain, all in all, which unfortunately doesn't fit as nicely into the first bustle era as I'd hoped. I also couldn't get through one project without putting my blood all over it.

At least it's hidden underneath the seam allowance.

If you're not sick of my rambling by now then well done. I'll add a quick section here about hair. My hairstyle last year was minimalistic, an there was something missing, namely a hairpiece. This year I was prepared and bought a long braid. After putting my short hair into a ponytail I made a short plaited bun, which I proceeded to wrap the fake braid around. I'm no good at getting my hair at the top of my head, which is period for this time, and so my crown was as high as it would go. I purchased a fake clip-in set of curls, and the comb I bought years ago and it looks pretty period, even though it isn't.

It was definitely lower than that on the night, but was still a vast improvement than last year. And if I can do it, the woman who can do nothing with her hair, then anyone out there can copy, and improve it.