Victorian (to 1901)

And Trending From Maison Worth, January 1894

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

La Maison Worth and the fashion press did not seemingly appear to have a close relationship yet, it seemed that there was a steady number of Worth designs that were featured in Harper’s Bazar during the 1890s, no doubt pushed along by Charles Worth’s two sons, Jean and Gaston. Below is one evening dress design that was featured on the cover of the January 20, 1894 issue of Harper’s Bazar:

Below is a description of the dress:

This superb gown of rose-colored moiré and dark garnet velvet is one of the most beautiful of the season for stately women lo wear at dinners, balls, and the opera. The front of the corsage [bodice] is of pale rose moiré, sloping to a broad point from a large bow on the bust, and is lightly embroidered with black and white beads. The sides and the back of the corsage are of garnet velvet, forming a short basque, cut in square tabs edged with bead embroidery.

Over short puffed sleeves are short winglike frills of velvet, surmounted by white lace. A tucker of white mousseline and lace fills out the top of the square neck. The front of the skirt is trimmed with three flounces at the foot, and is embroidered twice down each side. The train of velvet, falls in full folds, and is edged on each side with paniers of moiré turned back on the hips and tapering to the foot, the further edge finished with embroidery.

From the above description, this dress is constructed of rose-colored silk moire for the skirt and bodice front and garnet-colored silk velvet for the bodice and train. For the silhouette, it’s firmly in the mid-1890s style-wise. Below are swatches that give an idea of the basic colors:

Finally, we note that the sleeves are trimmed in white lace and that the neckline is filled with white mousseline, a silk muslin fabric. This style dress is a fairly conventional one for the time but it definitely embodied an elegant look that was suitable for any number of formal occasions. It would be interesting to know if this dress ever got beyond the concept stage and if so, we wonder what it would have looked like. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know.

 


A Mid-Bustle Style

/ Adam Lid / 2 Comments

One very distinct Mid-Bustle Era/Natural Form style involved a two-layer dress consisting of an underskirt covered by a front-buttoning princess line bodice/overdress. 🙂 One of the best-known examples of this style was immortalized in this painting by Albert Bartholomé:

Albert Bartholomé (French, 1848–1928)
In the Conservatory (Madame Bartholomé), ca. 1881,  Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Gift of the Société des Amis du Musée d’Orsay, 1990

And here’s the actual dress that’s in the picture:

Recently we came across this interesting example from the John Bright Collection that’s unfortunately missing the underskirt:

Day Dress (missing the underskirt), c. 1878-1881; John Bright Collection

Here’s a series of views from various angles:

It’s a bit odd viewing an incomplete dress like this but it’s still a fascinating dress in that the eye is immediately drawn to the stripes and the way that they’re worked on curves that follow body silhouette created by the corset. This is a great example of Mid-Bustle Era style, especially with the use of the princess line and the lack of a defined waist.  Here’s a couple of close-ups of the bodice/overdress:

In terms of materials, this dress appears to be constructed from a combination of silk brocade floral pattern in a light ice-blue color combined with stripes in a slightly darker blue cross-hatched pattern. It’s an interesting complex textile effect. Here’s a close-up:

The collar and cuffs are trimmed in ivory lace with the cuffs further trimmed with cross-hatched layers of the fashion fabric. Also, here’s a close-up of the sleeve cuff:

As for the missing underskirt, that’s a matter for speculation. It could have been some variation utilizing the fashion fabric or perhaps something different in say, a solid color similar to the rest of the dress. Unfortunately, we’ll never know. We hope that you’ve enjoyed this post on one variety of Mid-Bustle Era style and we look forward to bringing more to light in the future.


At The Atelier: Design Creation- Part 2

/ Adam Lid / 4 Comments

In out last post, we detailed drafting out an Eton jacket pattern utilizing a pattern drafting system developed by Charles Hecklinger in The Keystone Jacket and Dress Cutter. As we previously mentioned, while Hecklinger provides fairly comprehensive details, you really have to parse some of his instructions because they ambiguous on first reading. Also, for the collar, I had to “fill in the blanks” with basic pattern drafting knowledge that’s not readily apparent in the book- this isn’t a complete cookbook for tailoring by any means but pre-supposes a lot of knowledge on specific details. You have been warned! 🙂

In drafting the pattern, some details such as the width of the lapels and the collar style are left to the designer. Below are the pattern pieces:

And here’s the pieces for the toille:

So now onto the next steps….

First we form the jacket body. I was pretty pleased except for this darts. Following Hecklinger’s formula created darts that were simply too big.

After a test-fit, we modified the darts and added the collar and got this:

Not the most impressive result but it must be noted that I only used a single layer in the toille and forgot to account for the 1/2 inch seam allowance that would be lost when attached to the lining. We must emphasize that it’s a rough draft at this stage. However, we were more impressed with the back although the collar is riding up above the roll line (easily solved with a pressing).

After another test fit- the basic shell body was pronounced “good” so onto drafting the sleeves, once again following Hecklinger’s formula:

And then to a toille and attached to the rest of the toille:

Sleeve attachment is done pretty much by eye although a good general rule to start with is to line up bottom sleeve 1 inch forward of the side seam.

We used Hecklinger’s “plain sleeve” draft formula so there’s not a lot of excess in the shoulder head but just enough. Style-wise, this could work for either early or late 1890s. In the background, our fashion consultant Fiona is expressing her disapproval- not “Corgi” enough! 🙂

After more test-fitting, it was found that the sleeve cuff was too small so that was enlarged on the pattern piece (we didn’t bother constructing a new sleeve). Overall, the toille has been a success and everything has lined up nicely with the drafted pattern pieces. However, we’re not happy with the collar so that’s going to need some more work…

(To be continued…)

And Bows…

/ Karin McKechnie-Lid / Leave a comment

Day 12 of #VictorianFebruary hosted by @ladyrebeccafashions is: “Bows”…there’s nothing like hand crafted bows to create texture with a suit! I’m fairly sure there are twelve bows on my red silk Harper’s Bazar gown, not forgetting the ones on the back. 🙂

 

 


More In The Works- Patterns!

/ Karin McKechnie-Lid / Leave a comment

She’s so pretty, most likely homemade in 1879-1880. Machine stitched, hand finished with only one soutache side detail…she’s got stories. She’s also the first of our patterns that we’ll be offering soon, more information coming. 🙂