The making of...
I'm attending 2 Georgian events this year, coming from a person who usually stays firmly in the 19th century this presented an opportunity. At Christmas I was a member of the hoards of costumers and reenactors who bought the American Duchess's Guide to 18th century Fashion. I was already semi in love with the 1780s and 1790s, but now I had an opportunity to cross over.I tackled stays (not in the book but from good old Waugh), a balloon chemise, and a false rump. Compared with the maths involved in the chemise, and the fitting issues of the 2 pairs of stays I made, the petticoat should be easy. Wrong.
The bad thing was I relied on my memory to make a petticoat, thinking I had memorised online and book instructions correctly. Wrong!
I read a lot about measuring petticoats over supports like hoops and bum pads, and found there were to ways to do it. 1 was the HA way of cutting panels all the same size, and then adjusting for length at the waist, turning in the excess. This was because fabric was expensive back in the day, and by leaving the excess intact the garment could be altered in the future. 2 is the modern way of measuring a separate front and back panel and then sewing them, finishing with a neat waistband. And then there's 3, my way. Don't do this at home kids.
Despite my continually rocky relationship with HA, I decided to give it a go. However, if you're going to do this then I recommend reading all instructions before starting. I practically winged it. I read online that you want a minimum of 3m width in a petticoat, and unfortunately my linen wasn't quite wide enough just to cut 2 lengths. I had to cut 2, and then a small panel, which meant seam finishing, my least favourite thing.
I didn't want to cut into the fabric at the sides to create the openings, so I left the front as a full width of linen, but added the extra to the back, because that's where we want all the big-bummed volume of the 1780s, isn't it?
This was the place in the internal instructions where I got confused. I thought you folded the excess at the top at this stage, and then pleated. So, no surprise, when it didn't work, I decided to make my own instructions. Because it was a petticoat, it didn't really matter if it was even, or properly pleated. I'm quite good at pleating by eye anyway, and I couldn't be bothered putting in so much effort to something that wouldn't be seen.
Needless to say, I never did the turn in method, I ended up knelt on the ground with the petticoat on the mannequin and scissors in my hand hacking at the length until it looked relatively even. Then I hemmed it...by machine. I'll reiterate, not the biggest fan of HA things anymore, especially when they're petticoats.
My usual linen supplier was out of white, so I got a cream colour instead, and the weirdest thing is I actually prefer it. In my mine, it looks more authentic, barring of course the machine stitching and haphazard construction method.
I attached ties at the waist, and there, petticoat done.
Needless to say, when it came to the outer petticoat, the one in £35 p/m silk taffeta, there was no faffing about. The American Duchess book was whipped out, and I realised my mistake with the petticoat, but #noregrets. Now I was equipped with actual instructions, I could carry on.
Length. I've never had an issue with length before, but for the 1780s petticoats, it seemed like it was an anything-you-want time. Petticoats, even silk ones that were to be seen, weren't floor length, because they were usually worn under gowns that were open in the front (robe a la francaise, l-anglaise, italian gowns, etc.). Hence, it also didn't matter if they were entirely even at the hem. This included petticoats worn with jackets, which in some fashion plates and caricatures tend to be ankle length or above.
Having said that, most of the fashion plates I saw featuring Pierrot jackets in the period I was aiming with have longer skirts than that, some are even floor length. I knew two things. 1) I didn't want the skirt above ankle length, because I don't personally like it, and 2) I didn't want it floor length because I had new Kensington shoes I wanted to show off. I finally decided I wanted it at my ankle bone, maybe a little below, but not that close to the ground.
The AD guide suggests measuring over the centre of one of the pillows on the rump to where you want the skirt to sit, and cut panels to that length. Because I wanted a hem, and some excess at the waistband, I measured from pillow to floor. Big mistake.
Unlike the linen, the silk taffeta was wide enough to just cut 2 widths (which left me enough to create the flounce I was undecided about), with the two panels meeting at the selvages (no seam sewing, yay!). I even measured the pleats by calculating how wide they needed to be, that was how much I wasn't f**king about with this project. I pleated both down to the correct width, and then I noticed the problem.
After putting it on the mannequin I folded up the back waist to get the correct length I wanted, but the excess was so large that by the time I hit the right place the pleats at the waistband were almost gone. You can imagine if the back was like this then the front was even worse. The excess turned out to be at least 8-10". Whoops.
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| Hem is still trailing on the floor at this point |
I had already hemmed it 1" at the bottom. What was the solution? Bigger hem was my decision, and it worked. I associate large hem facings with the Victorian period because they needed the support at the hem, but now my 1780s petticoat has a large one as well. With the hem pinned in its new place (because I wasn't sure that would 100% solve the problem) I started measuring at the waist. I did have to pin the pleats a lot further down from the top, but I managed, and the excess at the waistband isn't ridiculous. I could argue here that everything I did was semi-HA. I could have cut the hem instead of folding up the excess, but I didn't want to waste fabric.
I sewed cotton tape (by machine) for the waistband, but I will have to finish off the turned-in edge at the waist, and when I was trying it on I was leaning away from a flounce. I love the pinked, scalloped edges of flounces on petticoats from this era, but as I looked at my poufy as hell petticoat I just thought, it's too much.
The pictures don't do the colour of the silk justice. It isn't a bright jade blue (colour?), or green, but it's more similar to a petrol blue, not in your face bright, but gracefully nice. I just looked at it and wasn't feeling the flounce. For the first time opting not to decorate came from aesthetic preferences rather than sheer laziness.
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| Pretty shoes to show off |
