But first, some history (come on… you know this is what I do). The distinguishing characteristic of the clothing of the 1910s is the break it made with the styles worn before. Not since the French Revolution had clothing changed so radically in so short a period of time. In the 10 short years from 1913 to 1923, corsets went away, necklines plunged, and hemlines rose to the knees.  Can you imagine what it must have been to live back then?  Here you are, wearing chemises and corsets and petticoats and corset covers and bloomers and all this stuff even before you put on your dress.  And then suddenly, women are running around wearing dresses that are less covering than your scantiest slip!  And it wasn’t just the highly fashionable Parisian crowd who were scandalously underclad in the 1920s.  It was everyone!  The Sears catalogs from the 1920s show these short skirts and deep necklines.

But the beauty of this time period for Costume Historians isn’t the radical change of fashion.  The most interesting bit the change in construction techniques.  In the 19th century, clothing was highly structured.  Every layer depended upon the layers under it.  Fabric was cut to fit the shapes that the undergarments gave to the wearer.  When the corset and crinolines went out, there was no longer any reason to cling to this concept of structured clothing, so it went out too.  Designers such as Paul Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin and Madeleine Vionnet were renown for their technique of draping — as opposed to pattern drafting — and their exploitation of the unique properties of each fabric and how it conformed to the body.

Today, dear RH fans, we’re going to make a dress like Vionnet did… in the same manner that Vionnet did.  And you could probably do it in the time it takes you to read this blog post.

You’ve all heard of the One-Hour Dress?

Meet the 20-minute Dress.

Yes. I’m going to teach you how to make a gorgeous 1910s evening or party dress in 20 minutes, start to finish.  And by “finish”, I mean done, in the bag, ready to wear.  No finishing work required!

This is a design originated by Madeleine Vionnet in 1919. Vionnet was a master of drape, and this dress (known as The Jabot Dress because of its distinctive handkerchief decoration) was one of her favourite designs.

What you need:

• four perfectly square silk scarves (I recommend the pre-hemmed silk scarves from Dharma Trading)
• lotsa sharp pins
• needle and thread (or a sewing machine)
• 20 minutes

Lay one of your square scarves directly on top of another, wrong sides to wrong sides. The right side of the top scarf should be facing up.
	Pin the top scarf to the bottom scarf along a diagonal line running from approximately 11″ from top corner to 8″ from the bottom corner (the path of the pins is shown by the position of the rulers)
Open up the scarves on their non-pinned corner and add another scarf, wrong sides to wrong sides, to the pile. Pin the second and third scarf together as pictured above. Repeat the pinning process with the fourth scarf.
Repeat once more, pinning the last (fourth) scarf to the first scarf. Your scarves should look like the photo at right: two rows of pins traveling diagonally across the scarves.  (The fabric has been plumped up around the pins to better show their position.)

Pin each of the two adjacent corners to each other, wrong sides to wrong sides.

Put the dress on your dress form.  Adjust the pins as necessary at the neckline and armscye.  Sew along the pinline with your needle and thread or sewing machine.

Add a sash around the hips and you’re done.  (See, it’s already hemmed!)

The 20-minute Vionnet

Next:  More wardrobe planning!

© 2012 Kass McGann. All Rights Reserved. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.

Leaving aside the underwear, nightwear, sportswear, outerwear, and incidental items, for this 19-day voyage I have determined that I will need:

• 11 formal evening gowns
• 4 semi-formal dinner dresses
• 15 day dresses or ensembles
• 3 suits

That’s 33 outfits.

It’s also 33 weeks until the Queen Mary 2 departs New York for Southhampton on 2 October, 2012.

How convenient!

*collapses from imagined exhaustion*

Okay. Let’s get down to business here. That means I have to make one outfit every week from now until we leave. The good news is that I have some outfits that are already started and other outfits that just need finishing. So those we’ll save for the weeks I’m busy with other things and can’t sew.

So it’s Week One.   This week’s outfit is a set of separates that can be worn to luncheon or around the ship during the day.

This is the skirt from RH1050 — Ladies’ 1910s Empire Costume. It is a high-waisted skirt with a narrow (not quite “hobble skirt”) profile. I had exactly 59″ of 60″ wide navy blue gabardine, so I laid out the pattern carefully, reduced the seam allowances to ¼”, and ran up the skirt.  It took about two hours from laying it out on the fabric to attaching the hooks and eyes to the opening.

The skirt is complete except for hemming (which I will do once I figure out which shoes to wear with it).  Don’t you think it screams “Lady Mary from Downton Abbey”?

Of course now we need a top to go with it.
I found some silk habotai in my stash and pulled out my RH1048 — Ladies’ 1910s Magyar Blouse pattern.

I made a few modifications to this pattern.  But they are modifications of omission, so they’re easy for anyone to do.  I cut the pattern as drafted, but I didn’t make the darts in the front and back of the pattern as shown in the instructions.  Frankly, I put it on my dress form before I sewed anything and just liked how it looked.  So I didn’t sew those two lines you see on the pattern cover.

Also, I didn’t want a collar so I skipped that part.

And then I realised that I laid out the pattern backwards!  LOL  Just goes to show that even professionals can make mistakes.  I laid out the pattern for a front closure rather than a back closure.  But that’s okay because I really like the look of a front closure on this blouse.

I french seamed the side seams and roll hemmed all the edges of the habotai blouse.  Then I closed the front of the blouse with the smallest snaps I could find so it wouldn’t distort the line of the blouse.

And… Voilà!  Week One Outfit One.  Done!

Tomorrow:  More wardrobe planning!

© 2012 Kass McGann. All Rights Reserved. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.

You see, Cunard started the first regular Transatlantic crossings with RMS Britannia in February of 1840.  Charles Dickens sailed on her in January of 1842.  It took her 10 days to do the Halifax to Liverpool route at an average speed of 11 knots.  She was the fastest steam ship of her time.

Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary 2 — the ship I will be taking on this voyage — is the largest ocean liner currently in service.  She is the largest ocean liner ever built.  She was the largest passenger ship at the time of her building in 2003, but she has since been superseded by some cruise ships belonging to Royal Caribbean.  However, she remains the largest ocean liner in active service.

When one speaks of history and large passengers ships, that inevitable question comes up: How does she compare to RMS Titanic, the “Greatest Ship Ever Built”. Well, see for yourself. The Blue silhouette is Titanic. The Grey, QM2.  She can accommodate 3056 passengers and 1253 officers and crewmembers compared to Titanic’s 2453 and 885.  Additionally Titanic’s cruising speed was 21 knots and her max speed, 23 knots.  QM2 cruises at 26 knots but her open ocean speed is 30 knots.

RMS Queen Mary 2 was named after the first RMS Queen Mary, a Cunard ship in service from 1936 until 1967 (the year of my birth).  The original QM sits permanently docked in Long Beach Harbour in California, still operating as a lovingly-preserved Art Deco hotel.

Historically, the first Queen Mary is very important to the history of ocean liners.  While she was under construction on the River Clyde in Scotland, Cunard and White Star (owners of Titanic) merged.  Cunard and White Star had been rivals since the 1840s but the Great Depression nearly bankrupted both companies.  Cunard being the majority shareholder of the merged company, construction on the final White Star liner Oceanic III was halted and the White Star vessels began to be phased out.  By 1950, there would hardly be any remnant of the White Star name.

RMS Queen Mary (the original ship) was named after Mary of Teck, Queen of England and consort to George V.  On my voyage, I am planning to wear a wardrobe from the 1910s through the 1930s.  George V was King from May 1910 (upon the death of Edward VII) until his death in January 1936.  (Thus the oft-used label of the Downton Abbey/Titanic Era of “Edwardian” is completely incorrect.  The period should in fact be termed “Georgian”.)

RMS Queen Mary 2 was named after RMS Queen Mary.  Thus I will be sailing on a ship that gives honour to the grandest ship on the ocean during the reign of George V, dressing as someone from the reign of George V, and celebrating my birthday which occurred in the final months of that ship’s ocean-going service.

Kismet…

Tomorrow:  More wardrobe planning!

© 2012 Kass McGann. All Rights Reserved. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.

Mary Brooks Picken deserves some of the spotlight here. Born in 1886, she founded the Women’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, PA. She was the first woman to be named a trustee of the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Advisory Committee on Women’s Clothing that selected Hattie Carnegie as the designer of the United States Army’s women’s uniform and provided advice and assistance on all elements of the women’s uniform beginning in 1949.

And if that weren’t enough, she was the first female author of a dictionary in the English language — The Fashion Dictionary in 1957.

She has ninety-six books to her credit, all of them about sewing and the needle arts, most of them written in the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s and therefore very useful to our purpose. These are not etiquette books written for the upper crust, but rather how-to texts written for women who would be making rather than buying or ordering their wardrobes. From my perspective, Mary Brooks Picken has given me a how-to book for my Dream Birthday Trip.

Now let’s dive into this…

Among chapters on Good Taste, Charm in Dress, the Right Underclothes, and Overcoming Irregularities in Figure, there is a extremely valuable section called “Planning Wardrobes”. And it is to that section that this post will mostly refer.

Along with lists of the proper clothes for a young school girl as well as a collegiate miss, there are sections on wardrobe essentials for both homemaker and business woman. Of course the Trousseau is covered beautifully.

There is also a section “Clothes for Traveling”. Furthermore, the darling woman has broken them down further into lists By Train, By Boat, and By Automobile, taking into consideration the different situations of luggage accommodation as well as social occasion involved in each.

Oh goodie, goodie, goodie!

While she doesn’t say so emphatically, it appears that the list is meant to accommodate a week of travel. The list calls for a coat, 2 dark silk dresses or 1 dark silk dress and a suit, 1 semi-formal dress, 1 hat for traveling, 1 larger hat for dress-up frocks, 4 sets of undergarments, 1 slip, 1 pair bloomers, 4 to 6 pairs of hose, 3 or 4 nightgowns or sets of pyjamas, a kimono or “Pullman” robe, 2 pairs of slippers for daily wear, 1 pair of pumps, 1 pair bedroom slippers, 1 pair of overshoes, 1 pair service gloves, 1 pair dress gloves, handkerchiefs, 1 scarf of silk, wool or fur, 1 umbrella, 1 generously-sized purse, another dark wool dress, a heavy coat, and an evening gown, dark in colour and conservative in cut.

Okay. Well. Hmmm… Not exactly the glamourous period wardrobe I envisioned.

So let’s toss out the list!

What we need to do is count the travel days, count the different occasions for which I’ll need to dress, and then figure out what is appropriate to wear on those occasions.

You with me?

Cunard has rearranged its website a bit, so I’m not finding a list of evening entertainments by journey. Typically, the dinners on the first and last night of the trip (in this case, October 2nd, 7th, 14th and 20th) are informal. The rest of the dinners are formal. On Transatlantic Crossings, they have what they call “Royal Nights” which are themed balls. When I was last on QM2, there was a Black and White Ball and a Buccaneers’ Ball, but I think the Buccaneers’ Ball is only on Caribbean trips. I’ve heard mention of the Royal Ascot Ball and the Masquerade Ball, but I have no idea if these occur on every Transatlantic Crossing. I’ll have to find out. I couldn’t be caught without something Black and White or *GASP* a costume for the Masquerade!

Plus one formal dinner on the Orient Express.

So that’s:

• nine formal dinner gowns
• four informal dinner dresses

There may need to be different dresses for dancing if some of the evening gowns won’t accommodate dancing. And if there are special themed Balls, there will definitely be different gowns for each theme.

Then I’ll need something to wear to board each conveyance:

• three boarding suits with matching hats

And day dresses to wearing during the day:

• twelve day dresses

There also need to be lounging outfits. There is a lot of lounging on a Transatlantic Crossing.

• five lounging outfits

Then there’s sleepwear:

• twelve nightgowns or pyjama suits

And underwear… and stockings… and slips… and… and… and… My God! What have I gotten myself into!?!?!

*faints*

Tomorrow: You gotta start somewhere!

© 2012 Kass McGann. All Rights Reserved. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.

I dreamed of a world as shiny and Deco as the Chrysler Building, picked out in white and black and chrome, captioned in a clean sans serif font. I dreamed of travel by train, where a Lady Must Wear the Proper Hat™. I dreamed of travelling to all those gorgeous foreign places forbidden in my youth in the 1980s — Bucharest, Prague, Baghdad… I dreamed of charming jewel thieves on the Riviera and murder (never anyone I knew, of course) on the Nile.

But more than anything, I dreamed of the clothes. I dreamed of being that impeccably-dressed woman with her supremely-efficient lady’s maid. I dreamed of parting a crowd by merely walking through it as passers-by stopped to stare at my wonderfully-matched suit in gorgeous cashmere melton. Most of all, I dreamed of the perfect hat and my curls always placed in the most becoming way around it.

When I got married, we couldn’t go on a honeymoon right away. But a year and a half later, Cunard had a special, so Bob and I took the Queen Elizabeth II to Southampton and stayed a couple of days in London. We dressed as best as we could. I wore evening gowns to dinner every night. I admit that they were all left-over bridesmaids’ dresses sold at a discount by our local bridal shop because the weddings had been cancelled. But they were evening gowns and I was on a Cunard ship on my honeymoon! Who cared that we didn’t even have a porthole. There is something so inspiring about those stacks of red with their black tops. But I was sure, back in 2003, that we were experiencing the last days of Transatlantic Crossings. I knew Queen Elizabeth II wouldn’t sail much longer.

And then they built Queen Mary II. And Queen Victoria. And now there’s a new Queen Elizabeth sailing the seas. The Golden Age of Ocean Travel lives again.

The Dream
When you near your 40th birthday, there is a natural tendency to look back upon your life and think about how far you’ve come and what you’ve achieved. There is also a desire to do what you haven’t done yet — to mark this milestone in a grand way, to celebrate middle age lest we dread it.

Aye! Aye! Captain! *rowrl*

On my 40th birthday, I desperately wanted to take a Transatlantic Crossing on the QM2, take the Orient Express following the route in the book by Agatha Christie, and return home on the QM2, all while dressed in a fabulously period wardrobe.

I started saving for this trip when I turned 35. Unfortunately financial circumstances deemed that there were more pressing uses for the money, and I got lunch and a private tour of Eastern Pennsylvania for my 40th birthday.

The Plan
Well, this year is my 45th Birthday. And I am determined to achieve what I did not five years ago.

Look. I’m a clothing historian. I make period patterns for a living. My favourite time period has always been the early 1930s. With the success of Downton Abbey and Boardwalk Empire, I have learned a great deal about the clothing of the 1910s and 1920s.

I produce patterns and clothing for this time period. I have the skill to make everything I want. I have the knowledge to know what to make for a complete traveling wardrobe for the Golden Age of Ocean Travel. I can do this.

Today is the 13th of February. It is precisely eight months until my 45th birthday. That’s 33 weeks until I have to board the ship. And isn’t 33 a lovely number?

If I have to sleep in the bilges to make this happen, I will do it!

Tomorrow we’ll delve into some books I have from the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s that tell you what a lady should have in her traveling wardrobe. Then we’ll get down to brass tacks and figure out how many outfits I need to make to take this journey.

Carole Lombard and friends in their skivvies

Then we’ll start building my wardrobe. Stay tuned to the blog as I build every piece of my wardrobe from underwear and nightwear to lounging ensembles and sportswear to dresses for afternoon tea, evening gowns, beautiful traveling suits, and dresses suited to the tango!

And hats! Oh my yes HATS!

But it’s probably best to start from the inside out. And that means SKIVVIES!!!

(Isn’t it wonderful that Cunard doesn’t have any luggage restrictions? Yes, I could literally take steamer trunks full of period clothing. And they even carry them to your cabin for you!)

So here is the itinerary:

• Eastbound Transatlantic Crossing on Cunard’s Queen Mary II — 2-8 October, 2012
• Rail Journey from London to Venice on the Orient Express — 11-12 October, 2012
• Westbound Transatlantic Crossing on Cunard’s Queen Mary II — 14-21 October, 2012

Now go post this on every blog, website, forum, social media site, and billboard you can. The more patterns I sell, the more likely I am to be able to do this. And I’ll have you all to thank!

© 2012 Kass McGann. All Rights Reserved. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.

When I received the fabric, I saw at once that it was not a satin weave. More importantly, it is far too light and flimsy to be the base of this gown. This type of tunic and sheath evening gown needs a solid base, and this wasn’t going to work. So I sent it back and ordered some duchesse satin instead.

Of course this means I may not have the gown done in time to wear at Reenactor Fest. But remember that I have a Plan B and that’s coming along just fine. And it’s not like I won’t get a chance to wear this gown elsewhere this year, most notably at the Titanic Dinner at Dress U in June that RH is sponsoring.

So while I’m waiting, I thought I’d work on the mockup in cheap cotton muslin. Please excuse the fact that I didn’t feel like ironing my scrap fabric.

Here are three photos of the bodice mockup on my dress form over my 1910s corset.

Here are two photos of the skirt mockup on my dress form over the bodice mockup.

That’s all for today.

Okay. It’s not all…

It’s 3:30pm now, and I’ve been looking at my dress form all afternoon. Something was wrong.  You see, this gown is supposed to have a Directoire waistline.  As it is, I have the skirt joining the bodice at the bottom edge of the bodice, which is on the upper hips.  This creates a nice natural waist, but it’s not the waist position of the original gown.

So I moved the skirt to the Directoire position:

Et voilà!  I think the whole thing actually fits better!

Remember that we are now taking pre-orders for the pattern I’m doing this construction to test. You can order it here. It will ship in mid-February.

Tomorrow… Who knows?

Buy patterns for Downton Abbey and Titanic Era clothing here!

I won’t lie to you. Next only to wearing the finished gown, this preliminary analysis is my favourite part of making a garment. I love getting my hands dirty with every tidbit I can find that relates to the garment in question.

So please indulge me.

The gown in question comes at the very end of the reign of Edward VII, called “The Edwardian Period”.  But it is not indicative of Edwardian fashion. The Edwardian silhouette is typified by the right-most figure in the corset advertisement at right.  The S-curve corset of the time pushed the bust forward and the backside out until women looked like they were perpetually falling forward.  Interestingly, this type of corset was first introduced as a health corset, but it was in fact more harmful than previous corsets because it misaligned the lumbar spine.

Then along came Poiret.

Paul Poiret started his career in 1898 with Paris designer Jacques Doucet but quickly moved on to that bastion of Victorian and Edwardian fashion masterpieces, the House of Worth.  Worth’s son, Gaston, called Poiret’s designs the “fried potatoes,” implying that they were mere simplistic foils to make his amazing “truffles” appear even more astounding.  But the truth is the Poiret was an innovator and the fashion world was ready for a change.

Taking his inspiration from the Orientalist costumes of the Ballet Russes and Japanese kimono designs, Poiret “freed the bust but shackled the legs” by discarding the corset and reducing the skirt to a columnar sheath later known as the hobble skirt.

As with all things, fashion changes are rarely as radical as they first seem.  And Poiret wasn’t so much an innovator than a master marketer who took credit for a fashion shift that was already happening.  Put quite simply, the corset had progressed to its natural extreme and the pendulum was ready to swing back again.  If one looks carefully at the gowns that preceded Poiret’s “revolutionary” designs, the movement away from the S-curve and umbrella skirt is already apparent.

A wonderful example of this style is shown in the photo at right (© The Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama).  It is accession number AC2388 79-20 at the Kyoto Costume Institute and can be seen on their website as well as in the book Fashion:  A History from the 18th to the 20th century.  This is a ivory silk satin gown with silk tulle embroidered and beaded overlay.  It was made by Poiret in 1910.  I chose this example because it bears a striking resemblance to the dress I’m making.  It also shows very clearly a number of features that I am finding in all the gowns I surveyed for this project.

First of all, all of the gowns begin with a silk satin base.  With shocking regularity, the colour is ivory, but other colours are also possible.  This base consists of a smooth columnar skirt in three pieces (one front and two backs) with a center back closing.  Some of the gowns are floor length and other have trains.  The trained gowns simply extend the back panel, sometimes leaving the seam open a short distance from the floor.  Others have additional pieces of the same size but longer than the back panel sewn on at the waist and left to flow loosely from the level of the thighs.

The bodice of this base often does not have sleeves of its own but only shoulder straps.  Some have no shoulder strap.  A typical number of bodice pieces is ten — two fronts, two side fronts, two sides, two side backs and two backs.  There are 6″ long bones sewn to each seam at the level of the waist.  The waist is elevated, but as often as not, the bottom of the bodice extends a couple of inches below the waist of the skirts, presumably to preserve an attractive line.  The bodice hooks at center back and the gown could be worn without a corset.

Paul Poiret gets credit for throwing away the corset, but this truth is that many of his customers still wore corsets with his gowns.  This new style of corset started at or below the bust, emphasizing control of the hips, not restriction of the waist.  They were more like girdles than what we think of as corsets, their “work” being focused on maintaining a smooth hipline.  In fact many of the gowns of this type that survive have waist measurements comparable to modern sizes demonstrating a step away from the obsession with waists in the teen measurements.

This pair of similar but different dresses shown at right were designed circa 1911 by Jeanne Lanvin (© The Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama).  They are both built on the same kind of base as the Poiret dress above and my inspiration dress from the London Museum.  The other element that all these dresses have in common is their materials.  The base is nearly always silk satin, as I’ve mentioned above.  The overlay is equally invariably silk net, chiffon or lace — some diaphanous and fragile fabric — decorated with beads, jewels, embroidery, sequins, and other embellishments.  Following the example of Poiret — who is credited with steering the fashion industry away from drafting and towards draping — the overdresses are arranged on the gown base and sewn into place.

It all boils down to the gown base forming a kind of canvas upon which the designer was more or less free to exert his or her creativity. The goal was to drape a tunic-length overlay of delicate material in an unusual way and then embellish it to taste.  Lead weights were often sewn into the hems of these overlays to keep them from billowing.  Tassels, asymmetry, drapery and swags all played their parts in these designs.  The typical sleeve was kimono-style — seamless.  And when the draping and decoration was finished, the overlay was sewn into the back opening of the gown so the separate layers would become one.

So this is where we begin — with a satin gown base consisting of boned bodice and simple skirt, over which I’ll drape organza and embellish it with silver paillettes.

Tomorrow… Getting down to work!

Buy patterns for Downton Abbey and Titanic Era clothing here!

Sources
Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen’s Dresses and Their Construction c1860-1940. 1977: Macmillian Publishers Ltd., London.
Ashelford, Jane. The Art of Dress: Clothes and Society, 1500-1914. 1996: National Trust Enterprises Limited, London.
Boucher, François. 20,000 Years of Fashion. 1987: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
Bradfield, Nancy. Costume in Detail 1730-1930. 1997: Costume and Fashion Press, New York.
Kirke, Betty. Madeleine Vionnet. 1998: Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, California.
Koda, Harold and Andrew Bolton. “Paul Poiret (1879-1944)” — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Rothstein, Natalie, ed. Four Hundred Years of Fashion. 1999: V&A Productions, London.
Waugh, Norah. Cut of Women’s Clothes 1600-1930. 1964: Routledge, New York.

Well, I’m plotting out a modular scheme for the decoration. In other words, I’m going to put together the satin bodice and skirt quite quickly, finishing that in the first day or two. Then it’s all decoration. I’m going to start with a light edging of paillettes on the sleeve ends and neckline. If I still have time, I’ll add more paillettes to the sleeves ends and neckline. If there is more time, maybe a light smattering of paillettes over the whole gown. If more time, another pass over the whole gown. That way if I run out of time, I’ll at least get some paillettes on the gown and I can add more later.

But Bob does bring up a valid point. If I run out of time before I finish the base gown, I’m not going to have anything new to wear, and I’ll be sad.

And then a picture flashed into my head:

Remember Lady Sybil’s Turkish Trousers from the first season of Downton Abbey?

After that episode, I heard many people talking about Paul Poiret’s Orientalist designs from “The 1002nd Night” in 1911. But we memorizers of Patterns of Fashion just turned to page 68 for Madeleine Vionnet’s Black Crepe Evening Dress with Zouave hemline from 1918.

Vionnet’s creation wasn’t really trousers. The split stops slightly above the ankles, just high enough to give the illusion of separate legs as long as the lady walked in a ladylike fashion and didn’t take huge strides. True to Vionnet’s style, the construction is extremely simple. The bodice is little more than a bandeau with spaghetti straps. And the skirt/legs are made from a rectangle of fabric, artfully gathered and wrapped around the legs. The construction is ingenious in the truest sense of the word, but if Janet Arnold hadn’t laid it flat for us, we would never have been able to imagine it.

Best of all, it’s quick. I made a scale mockup of the outfit in less than an hour (of course I didn’t hem it or put in fastenings). And I have the perfect fabric:

Yes. “Kass green” silk crepe de chine. Just had it lying about. It was destined for a 1930s day dress, but I think it will suit this better. I’ve got four yards of 45″ wide. I bet it won’t take more than two.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to decorate the waist with anything at all. Vionnet’s original had black crepe roses. Lady Sybil’s of course has some kind of Orientalist trim. I’ll cross that bridge when the rest of the work is done.

I have to move too quickly to post about my progress on this one. But I’ll post photos when we get back from Reenactor Fest!

Tomorrow… Return to the Evening Gown

Buy patterns for Downton Abbey and Titanic Era clothing here!

But you can’t wave candy like that under my nose and expect me not to take a bite!

You see, I would really like to make a 1910s dress. I’ve wanted to make one for years. And while we’ve added a lot of 1910s daywear to our pattern line over the past year, we don’t yet have any evening dresses. So I was planning on working out a pattern for an evening dress anyway. And what better thing than to be motivated by TWO deadlines at once.

Yeah. This is what I consider fun. *faints*

What with the 100th anniversary of the Titanic coming up in April and the new Downton Abbey series being on TV right now, a lot of my costumer friends are talking 1910s stuff. They’re posting photos of stuff in museums and things they’re planning on making this year. And I guess I’m just a victim of peer pressure after all.

For a couple of years now, I’ve wanted to make this dress. It’s an evening dress dated to 1909-1910 that lives in the London Museum. It was made by Madame Hayward in Bond Street, London for Lady Maud Warrender. We’re not sure of the occasion. You can read more about the dress in Janet Arnold’s book Patterns of Fashion 2: Englishwomen’s Dresses and their Construction — c1860-1940. It’s on page 58, Item 20. The image at right is a scan from that book and I’m using it for the purpose of illustration.  (The copyright belongs to the estate of Ms. Arnold.)

This gown resembles other gowns of the early teens made by designers such as Paul Poiret and a even some owned by that Royal fashion plate, Queen Maud of Norway, daughter of King Edward VII of England.  It was clearly a very popular style of evening dress.  This style of gown is distinguished by its high “Directoire” waistline, its horizontal bodice, its kimono-like draped sleeves, and its construction from fine, highly-decorated sheet fabrics.  Poiret is said to have invented this style in 1906 at a time when the S-curve silhouette dominated fashion.  He discarded corsets entirely and developed this new style.  However, the dress of the example at right (and indeed most of the surviving examples) are fully boned and were meant to be worn over a corset (though the long-line corset of the 1910s, not the dangerous S-curve of the first decade of the 20th century).

One of the things I love about this dress is that it’s so simple.  It may appear amazingly complicated, but really it’s just a boned bodice and a plain skirt.  The basic construction is completely unfussy.  There are no gathers or pleats.  The skirt has two darts in front and a back placket to hide the closure.  There are bones on each bodice seam and a petersham waistband to keep everything aligned.  And it hooks up the back.  Over that, you apply all the decoration.  The example from the London Museum above is ivory satin overlaid with black silk net adorned with silver sequins.  Even when worn over a corset, this style represented a complete departure from the complicated structures of the Edwardian period.

Personally, I have a lot of evening gowns in black and white already, and I’d like to do something a little more colourful with this one.  In my stash, I have some beautiful figured silver silk satin lurex blend that I think will be lovely as the underlayer.  And for the sheer overlayer, I have some azure blue silk organza.  I’ve got twill tape for the waistband and short steel bones for the bodice. And I have a remnant of light wool flannel that will weight the hem very nicely. I even have #14 silver paillettes back in stock!

At left is a photo of my dress form draped with the silver satin and the organza just to see how it looks.  This one is taken with flash.  The one to the right, no flash.  (Please excuse that the fabric has fold marks on it.  I didn’t press it before I took the photos because I just wanted to see if the colours worked together.)

I think we have a winner? What say you?

Tomorrow… A surprise!

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