This was a fun day in town…time to pull out this old dress for a little refashioning! ☺️
Victorian (to 1901)
More About The Newest Dress From No. 11
Walked to town today and enjoyed the rare treat of visiting with friends. 😊
The Newest Dress From No. 11…
Enjoying one last moment of the AC before the heat and humidity of Allen street.
More Tea Gowns- 1885 Style
Lately it seems to be all about tea gowns here at the Atelier but when you’re on a roll… 😊 Today we feature this circa 1885 tea gown that was made by Liberty:
Liberty & Co., Tea Gown, c. 1885; Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.300.3384)
This gown is constructed of pink and ivory silk, most likely taffeta, and is cut to give the appearance of an open robe draped over an underdress. The pink silk fashion fabric composing the outer layer is a solid color and appears to be of one piece with minimal three-quarter length sleeves. Also, although the staging is not the best, one can make out a gathered train. For the undergarment, the fashion fabric is decorated with a floral design on the skirt fore-part and it appears to have been embroidered. And just to finish everything off nicely, the neck and cuffs are of gauze/lace.
Rear View
In many respects, this tea gown incorporates the basic Aesthetic Dress style elements of a seemingly unstructured flowing silhouette, simple ornamentation, and an emphasis on practicality (although that can be a relative term). Clearly this gown was far too elegant for a simple “at-home” dress and it’s definitely meant as something more. At the same time, the gown builds on basic morning/house dress styles (the terms tend to be used interchangeably). Overall, this is a nice example of a mid-1880s tea gown and will definitely serve as a source of inspiration.
In The Works- Tea Gowns, Part 2
In yesterday’s post we gave a bit of an overview of our design inspiration so today, we’re going to show theory being put into practice. 😊 The final design that we settled on is a formal circa 1881 tea gown that was intended to be worn when receiving guests at home. It perhaps would have been a step down from a formal occasion and as such intended for close friends.
To begin, we first we start with the fabrics themselves:
The fabric on the left is a red waterfall pattern silk moire that we bought in Munich and we’ll be using that for the revers. The fabric on the right will be the fashion fabric and is a light/dark red silk brocade we bought in Paris, or more specifically, in Montmartre. Below is a close-up of the Montmartre fabric:
One of the most striking features is the rough/irregular texture and when combined by the shades-of-red color spectrum, makes for a very striking fashion fabric.
Finally, we’re utilizing a large vintage lace piece that we obtained from Elizabeth Emerson Designs– Thanks Liz!! 😁
Next, utilizing our collection of vintage garments and studying some period patterns, we created our own unique design:
Essentially, we opted to go with a two-part design consisting of an outer body that opens up to reveal a plastron of ivory-colored lace back with ivory silk taffeta. The pictures above and below are of the outer body- note the silk moire revers.
And then there’s the plastron:
The lace will be hand-tacked to the silk taffeta where the pins are…there’s a lot of work ahead there. 😆
And putting it all together (although more stitching remains to be done):
Ultimately, this will be one single garment once the plastron is fully attached.
And one last view with one of our creative consultants:
The gold silk shoes will make a wonderful accompaniment- I think Fiona approves! 😉 There’s more to follow so stay tuned….