"Gettysburg" Boots by American Duchess

     American Duchess just came out with some new pretties! "Gettysburg" booties. They work from 1822ish through 1860's. One of my favorite periods! I've been hoping for this shoe for a while. I just ordered some in the pre-order (which means 20% off). Check them out!

(photos by American Duchess)

Fusiliers Bodice Mock-Up

     Got the mock-up done! Fitting has always been stressful for me, but I think this one went okay.
My base pattern was Laughing Moon's Early 1860's Day Dress. The bodice portion with coat sleeves.

via Laughing Moon

     

     I made the armscyes bigger (they were digging in under my arms), narrowed the sleeves, widened the neck, and took in the waist about a 1/2 inch. I also lengthened the bottom edges a little. I decided that I may want to extend the bodice into the little skirt thing. If I leave a little extra room at the bottom, I will have the proper seam allowance to add that piece below the waist. Hmm... Maybe this shows what I'm trying to say: 

     This is Queen Victoria's riding habit. (Looks a lot like what I'm going for!) See the part where it flares out from the waist? That's what I might aim for. On the men's tunics, it's a separate piece sewn to the waist. Dunno what it's called...

Victorian Military-Inspired Bodice

     Some time ago, I decided I needed a Victorian Military-inspired outfit to wear at Dickens Fair. Women's military-inspired clothing is popular throughout fashion history. Often seen in riding habits or outerwear, but also in everyday wear.

     My inspiration was a dress I saw backstage on an elegant lady at Dickens Fair of 2012. It turned out the lady was Cait of Curse Words and Crinolines! (I'm a big fan!) 

     She styled the dress after the 13th Hussars tunics (the Hussars are a British regiment). She explains it all on her blog. Check it out!
     I decided I must have one. I covet the red tunics of the Fusiliers. Partly because I wear red at Dickens and I'm now really into red Victorian dresses, but mostly because lovely, lovely Boyfriend wears that regiment at Fair!

The British are coming! The British are coming!
There he is, left front.
copyright Laurie T.

     My Dickens skirt is already roughly the color of the tunic, so that will represent the bottom part. But not my old bodice nor the new one I just finished will cut it for the top part. So, NEW BODICE! Yay!
     I need find the proper shade of red wool to match Boyfriend's tunic. He has already allowed me extensive observation of the garment and gifted my proper regimental buttons, lace, and collar grenades. (Oh, my goodness, I love that boy!) 

     I have decided to stop the garment at the waist, straight in front and a little point in back. This is a feature seen in mess jackets. Look at this picture of Captain Haselemere dancing with the Queen. 

See that little point in the back? That's what I'm going for.
copyright Christopher M. 

     I will be using a heavily modified Laughing Moon Early 1860's Day Dress bodice pattern as a base. The coat sleeves provided in the pattern are a good shape, but a bit big, so I will narrow them a bit. The button placket will be piped with white piping. A little navy wool collar will be added and matching cuffs. The gold lace will go on the collar and cuffs. The buttons and grenades go on last. Here are some photos I got of the tunic for reference:

     

     It's an original, so it's very old. We think about the 1880's. The wool on these old tunics can survive pretty well if taken care of, but the thread will just rot over time. The thread must be replaced. Boyfriend has done it on his a few times. 

     Oh! I'm excited! I do hope to finish it for Dickens! 

Anna Karenina

   
     So, I finally got my @$$ around to seeing Anna Karenina (the 2011 version with Keira Knightly and Jude Law). EVERY SELF-RESPECTING COSTUMER AND FASHION FANATIC MUST SEE THIS MOVIE. It's porn!! Juicy, fabulous eye candy....
     The movie is done pretty well, too, which is a very nice plus to any costume drama. The costumes are not just beautiful, but they express the characters, story, setting, and development of said plot and characters (weather it was historically-correct or not). In my opinion, it's one of the main aspects that makes or breaks a costume(s). Oh, yes, and of course it won an Oscar for Best Costume. Well deserved.
     I could run through what I loved about each of the costumes individually, but I instead will turn your attention to one particular dress. A very simple, yet striking gown (well, simple compared to the other gowns in the movie). A gown worn by a woman whose attire I and many others are quite used to coveting already.
It is the lavender-periwinkle ballgown wore by none other than Michelle Dockery.
     The chick who play Lady Mary from Downton Abbey. Just in case you need reference.

Lady Mary

     Dockery's character is one of the fine ladies that hangs out in "society" and looks pretty with Anna and all the other rich ladies. Her name is Princess Myagkaya, I believe. But now, the dress...

     Try as I might, it was hard to find a decent shot of the full front of the dress, but I found some fun tumblr gifs.    http://righterb.tumblr.com/post/44725855085/michelle-dockery-in-anna-karenina-2012

     I just love the dress. Looks very well made, great silk, great color, great fit, great details. And I love the accessories. Unlike many of Anna's gowns, this one is more historically accurate. You can see the curved seams on the back of the bodice, the hook-and-eye hidden closure, the neckline, the little peplum in the back, and the way skirts are drawn up (most likely attached to ribbons underneath). Also notice the way the bodice is set at the natural waist and the straight front bottom edge . Perfect for the super late 1860's and the first 4 or so years of the 1870's. I also love it, because it gives the illusion that your legs are much longer (which is fun for me, because I'm so short and have little legs!).
     Oooh....makes me want one for myself. And I do want a Bustle Era gown....ahh... The bodice would have to be detachable so I could makes a matching day bodice! PREEETY!!!
     Of Anna's costumes, I did love many of them, especially the ones she wears earlier in the film. Dark, but elegant and very fun. This was one of my favorites...

Costume sketch.

     Love it. But, if you haven't, go see it for yourself. It's a good movie. And for me...

Onward!

Petti Project Continued

 
     I did actually do some work on my ruffled and corded petticoat. The cord is just some stuff from Joann's that is super cheap and gets the job done. Nothing fancy.

Cord.

Close-up of cord.

Pinning cords above a ruffle. Another ruffle went over these cords.

     I got a few ruffles and cords done, but have since decided I will be changing around my design. First, I need more cording rows and more ruffles. Second, a yoked waist. I drew the waistband up with a strong lace at first. I discovered that this left far too much gathered fabric at the waist. All bulky. Ew.

     I will cut up the top part of the petticoat to resemble the method of Truly Victorian's Free Petticoat Diagram. It's still gathered up at the waist, but with less fabric than the bottom, to avoid the bulky top. It also gives more froof to the bell shape we're trying to create with that era of skirts. 

Onward!

A Single Pocket

     I decided I needed at least one pocket for my Dicken's Fair dress this year. I was tired of having to shove everything in my silly little reticule. This was my first go at pockets and it was an interesting experience. I basically just fudged the whole thing. I'd seen 18th century pockets and then listened to my friend describing her pocket method. I just made it up from there. There's probably an easier way to do it/ more effective.

     The pocket shape. I had some fun red-polka-dotty printed cotton left over from another project. I freely cut this shape (2 of them) and sewed them together on the outside and cutting a slit about halfway down the middle of one of the two pocket panels. Then, I stitched the slits into the right side seam of my skirt, which I had hacked open for a couple of inches at pocket-height.
     The result was an almost-invisible pocket in the right side seam of my red Dickens skirt. It is fairly deep, so I've found I can store quite a bit in there comfortably, like pencils and cell phones. I found this out while sketching at PEERS Pre-Raphaelite Picnic in Alameda a couple weekends ago. I also got to model for the sketching!
     I was playing the part of Effie Ruskin (as asked by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who was running the sketching and is part of Dickens Fair) a muse of the PRB painter John Everett Millais. She was married to the Victorian art critic John Ruskin when she was 19 years old and he was far older. This was later annulled, because their marriage had never been consummated and she went on to marry Millais, after modelling for him for several years.

Effie Gray
painted by Thomas Richmond

     There actually will be a movie coming out about her, which I am quite excited for! Starring Dakota Fanning.

Screenshot from Effie. Scheduled for release in October of 2013.

Petti Project

     What Little Moth has been working on...
   
1830's/40's Skirt Supports: I decided to ditch the idea of sporting hoops to Dickens Fair this year. Tried it out a couple weekends last season. Hated it. Fezzi's (the dancing guild I'm part of at Fair) backstage is too small and there are already too many goddamn hoops swinging about and crowding the space. So....PETTICOATS!
     Not the tulle-net-synthetic cr@p I wore my first season. It got weighed down by my skirts. And then last season I threw together my first corded petticoat (wow, I didn't know what I was doing when I started that). Problem was, I didn't put nearly enough rows on cording in it and didn't starch it, lacking knowledge of how. My skirts still looked saggy. As you can see...My Dickens Dress. Fail. But, you can see that the hips look a little fuller, which is because I padded the cartridge pleats a little bit to help with the bell-shape of the skirt on top of petticoats and avoid getting the dreaded cone-shaped silhouette. For example:

No.

(aliexpress.com)

Yes.

(Ballgown, ca 1855 France, KCI)

          See the difference of the bell? Well, that's what I'm going for with the petticoats I'm working on combined with my padded pleats. The plan:

-my (now-re-vamped and starched) corded petticoat

                 -made from stiff muslin and thick cotton cording

                         worn under

-ruffled AND corded petticoat (in progress) 

                -ruffles with several cords underneath them

                -made from minty-green King-sized bed sheet my momma gave me

                -100% Egyptian cotton

-both petticoats will have the living daylights starched out of them

     The final decision to go petti came from inspiration from a lovely post by the lady behind Frolicking Frocks. She shows the wonders of multiple layers and starching. I tried the bum-pad idea that she had, but the shape I created didn't quite work for me, so I think I'll try one that is more like hers. 

     Oh, and I think this chick is cute:

That's all for now, folks!

My Dickens Dress

     So, I participate in the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in the San Francisco Cow Palace. It's a bloody good time. This past season was my second and I had a new character, so I had to make a new costume. I was originally going for late 1830's, but it just ended up being a frickin mish-mash of eras and styles. The costume directors want us to keep our costumes to the bell-era (roughly 1842-1864). My deviating dress style kind of bothers me, but I'm proud of the learning experience and still had a great time.
     I found a decent bright red cotton sateen at Joann's and set to work. I had limited time and I hate working under pressure, but that's how it went. I got all this inspiration for the sleeves from late Regency fashion for the puff sleeves, but I wish I'd just stuck with the slopping shoulders of the mid-Victorian era. I used Laughing Moon's Early 1860's Day Dress for the bodice pattern, but altered it a lot, obviously. For the skirt-the basics. Just two panels of fabric cartridge pleated onto a waistband. I really do like cartridge pleats. I padded them a bit with just a layer of cotton folded under them. Dunno if I like the effect still. It does give me some nice hips, seeing as I lack in that department in actual anatomy.
     Through the run of Fair, I switched between wearing a weird modern crinoline-poufy-thing, a small hoop, and a corded petticoat under the skirt. The crinoline was crap, kept getting weighed down. I think my material is a little heavy, though. The hoop was nice, but I don't like how much room it takes up backstage and for sitting and such. I only got the corded petticoat done like halfway through the run, so it didn't get as much use, but I like the effect best. I didn't starch it, so it did cause my skirts to droop a little bit, but I plan to supplement that next year by making a bum pad and starching and maybe a ruffled petticoat in a stiff fabric on top of the corded. I really like the shape of skirts in the 1840's, so that's what I'll go for.
                            Enough talk, here are the photos. I decided to use this dress for my Concentration, because, what the hey, might as well. One less dress to make.

I fixed the hem shortness later.

Me want my skirt poufier...

Period-correct faux-button closure. Hooks and eyes!

What lies underneath...

                      That's all for this little dressy for now, folks. All in all, good learning experience!