Photography by Mina Habibi You can find her work at www.minahabibi.com and facebook.com/minahabibiphotography
Photography by Mina Habibi You can find her work at www.minahabibi.com and facebook.com/minahabibiphotography
Photography by Mike Davidson of In the Long Run Designs
Photography by Mike Davidson of In the Long Run Designs
“Butt shot” of all of us at the DC Cosplay Photoshoot meetup who were wearing padding of some sort in the rear! Also pictured, Gloria Sheu and Kenna Libes
Photography by Mike Davidson of In the Long Run Designs
I fell in lust with this dress when I first saw it years and years ago. It’s housed in the Danish National Museum (https://natmus.dk/) and they had a marverlous exhibit of historical clothing as well as pdfs of the scaled patterns. Unfortunately, these are the only two (and low res at that) photos available and the museum has since moved the exhibit’s website so somewhere else on their site so all my bookmarks to it have become frustratingly defunct.
The original dress is made of a pale yellow silk with stripes and scattered pale blue and white flowers. It’s done in the Piemontaise style and the website (incorrectly) attributes the dress to 1750. In actuality, the dress is probably circa the 1780s.
The bum padding has always made me wonder when considering how to make this dress and I hade a breakthrough moment when Lauren Stowell published her book, “The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking: How to Hand Sew Georgian Gowns and Wear Them With Style”
The Italian gown section of the book was very informative and there are distinct correlations between the piemontaise style and the Italian gowns of the 1780s. So I made this rump from the American Duchess book pattern.
I threw it on with one of my existing petticoats…
And from the back…
And was delighted at how well the silhouette matched up with the extant dress!
I think I found a winner. Thus armed, I dove into the project.
I did need a new corset. The blue corset pictured above is several years old and while still in great shape, I’m in better shape. Losing 40 pounds neccessitated a new corset. Happily, Simplicity put out a new corset pattern…
Not wanting to stitch all the lacing holes by hand, I got one of these suckers. Very very VERY convenient.
All the eyelets were completed in under an hour.
Fully boned with reed.
Tedious amounts of hand stiching the tab bindings…
Tada! And a new green chemise too. Because peas are green (and I had the linen on hand)
Piemontaise. Pea-montaise. Aaaaahahaha. ha. I’m done now.
The American Duchess book was an invaluable aid in fitting and assembling the dress.
The AD book expects you to sew it all by hand. I used the machine as much as possible.
A convinced a friend to help me with the fitting!
There were a lot pleats.
A LOT OF PLEATS.
And the night before the photoshoot the NoVA chapter of the ICG helped me get the sleeves set and I pilfered/borrowed some beads since I forgot all about a necklace until that last minute. Whoops. Thanks, Leslie!
