FCS 490R Fashion History. Midterm: Half-Scale Recreation Project

 Half-Scale Recreation Project

1800's English Regency Dress, Half Size 14

Elizabeth Gibbons

Sister Orme

Regency England Dress Research

November 16, 2020

Regency England Dress Research

From the early 1800’s to approximately the 1830’s, the standards and customs of dress in England took a surprising turn. Where tight-fitting corsets and hooped petticoats were the norm in the previous century, a completely different direction was taken at the start of the 19^th century. During this time, empire waisted dresses became the norm in fashion, so full whaleboned corsets became less necessary. In addition, inspiration was taken from the fashion of Ancient Greece, and the skirts on dresses draped close to the body.

There are differences in dresses found in the 1800’s, the 1810’s and the 1820’s, so I had to choose one decade to detail my dress from. After researching each decade, I decided to design a dress in a style most closely reminiscent of the 1810’s. Around this time, many dresses lost their train and were hemmed higher. “The dress fitted closely, but no longer trailed on the ground as before... By 1808, in some garments at least, the feet were free, and two years later ankles were visible.” (Brooke, 1937) There were also differences seen in the construction of the bodice of these dresses. “The bodice has a broad, rounded neckline, gathered slightly by a drawstring... Backs were narrow... the classic "diamond back" cut for this period. Shoulder seams were set behind the modern shoulder line and a diagonal back seam went from near the center back to the back of the arm... armholes from this period were cut deeply towards the center back.” (Greenburg, n.d.) The fit of these dresses was also much more obviously straighter during this decade as well. “By 1810, skirts were much straighter, and the fullness that was left in the skirt was concentrated at the back, while the front was flat, falling straight to the floor.” (Franklin, 2020)

The material used for dresses was lightweight and delicate, often made from either cotton or silk. “The materials used were excessively light muslin, batiste, lawn...” (Brooke, 1937) With this in mind, I chose a light cotton woven fabric in an unbleached white color for the material of my dress. I designed my pattern to incorporate the diamond-back shape of the back bodice and gathered the broad neckline using cotton cording. I tried to keep all the skirt and sleeve gathers at the back of the dress, apart from some decorative front skirt pleats as the skirt proved to be much wider than the bodice after patterning. The entire project was hand-stitched, primarily using the running backstitch and whipstitch techniques. The seam allowances were finished as flat-felled seams. Finally, I added hand-sewn eyelets to the back bodice.

 

Given the opportunity to approach this project again, I would have gathered the skirt at the back more and fixed the shoulder seams. I also would’ve added more length to the skirt; I haven’t seen the final dress on a dress form yet so I can’t be sure, but looking at it in its current state I’m not sure whether it’s too short to be period appropriate. I would also have liked to recreate the undergarments which would have been under such a dress – a period-appropriate chemise, stays, and petticoat – but ran out of time when fixing the dress pattern pieces.

 

 

 

References

Ackermann, R. (1809). The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashion and Politics. Retrieved November 04, 2020, from http://archive.org/stream/repositoryofarts109acke

Brooke, I., & Laver, J. (1937). English Costume of the Nineteenth Century. In English Costume (pp. 346-366). New York, New York: The Macmillan Company.

Franklin, H. (2020, June 25). Fashion History Timeline: 1800-1809. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1800-1809/

Greenburg, H. (n.d.). It's All in the Details: Gowns. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/regency/tips/

Tortora, P. G., & Eubank, K. (2010). The Directoire Period and the Empire Period. In Survey of Historic Costume (5th ed., pp. 307-324). New York, New York: Fairchild Books.