Things I learned from making my first Victorian dress...

Over the course of the last *cough* year and a half *cough* I ventured into a new area of costuming for me, the Victorian era. More precisely the early bustle era: the 1870's. Before this I had read a bit about the era (though more about the 1860's) and had seen countless other costumers works on the era. But this was my first time trying to do something this big. And I learned a lot from it.

This post is going to be a compilation of a bunch of things I learned from this journey/things I would do differently next time.

• The Victorian era, particularly the 1870's, is great for beginners because they can easily cover up their mistakes with lots of trim. I made so many mistakes with this dress. Like a lot. Some of which were not able to be recovered and had to be scrapped completely, such as my first bodice. But due to the fact that the Victorian's loved their trims, I was able to hide a few of my bigger, armature mistakes such as my un-even dress hem. Yep. That black ruffle along the bottom of my skirt was a backup plan because I accidentally cut some of the panels to short.
• Start with printed patterns. Don't try to scale up patterns from a book if this is your first time venturing to this era. That ended up giving me a ton of trouble on the skirt and bodice, which is why I ultimately had to re-make the bodice.
• Do not underestimate the power of having a lot of trim on your dress. The biggest thing I see looking at this dress now is the severe lack of trims. I put what I thought was a lot at the time, but it seriously needs a lot more.

• You can hem your skirt up higher than you think. I hemmed this dress so it was barely off the ground at the front (maybe an inch off the ground). After talking with my friend Michaela, who has a bit more experience with historical costuming that I do, I learned that I would have been good with 2-3 inches off the ground. It ended up working out okay for me this time, but in the future I'll be hemming just a little bit higher.
• Don't stress about being perfectly historically accurate. When I set out to make this dress I wanted it to be as accurate as possible, which ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself and I ended up procrastinating a lot. I lost motivation for the dress about half way through because of this. At that point I decided that I wasn't going to stress about it being perfect (at that point I knew it wouldn't be) and I told myself that I just needed to finish it. I had period appropriate material, the right underpinnings, and to the best of my ability the right silhouette for it (although not perfect). It's okay to not be perfect as long as you finish and learn from it. Costuming to me is about learning and having fun either while making and/or (though hopefully both) wearing the costume, and once I remembered that I was more motivated and actually finished the thing!
• Having cute shoes that match the era (even if they aren't entirely historically accurate due to budget limitations) will make you feel like your outfit is complete. I purchased a pair of Funtasma lace up boots to go with this since I couldn't afford the American Duchess shoes (and because I wanted lace up boots), and putting them on made the whole thing feel so much more real. It's amazing what a pair of shoes can do!

Michaela and I at Costume College

And I have to add, wearing a bustle with a train is one of the funnest things I've ever worn.

1871 Dress Sneak Peek

Here's a little sneak peek of my 1871 dress, which I'll be wearing at Costume College this year. I finished the bodice (minus trimmings) a few days ago and had to try the whole thing on. I'm so excited for it to be almost done!

The dress has been (and still is) a huge learning curve for me. After it's completed I'm planning on writing up a blog post on the mistakes I made and what I learned from this project.

I'm going to Costume College!

After years of seeing other costumer's share their experiences of Costume College I'm finally getting to go! And I'm so excited! I've purchased my tickets and been figuring out the details. I'll be going with my friend Michaela, who's also going for the first time, and it's going to be awesome!

A few months ago I started a GoFunMe to help me go to Costume College. If you haven't seen it yet you can get to it HERE. I'm so thankful for everyone who has donated so far, and I would appreciate anyone sharing it to help get it around.

I've been figuring out what costumes I want to bring with me to CoCo. From what I've seen people mostly seem to wear historical costumes but other costumes are allowed and encouraged. But I've decided to only bring historical garments since I literally have no events that I get to wear them.

I'm planning on making/finishing several costumes to wear to the events at CoCo. Here's what I'm planning...

First up is finishing my 1871 day dress. This dress has seriously been in the works for a year now and I just want to get it done. It's actually fairly close, but still needs a lot of work. At least it looks like a dress now...

Actually, there's several things that I thought were done on it that I'm going to have to take the seam ripper to and re-stitch. And they're all things that have to be sewn by hand. Ugh. Anyways...

The next thing is my Regency dress. I've actually almost finished sewing the dress, just have to hem it and add a few details but otherwise the actual dress is pretty much done. I still have to make a chemise, the spencer jacket, and find shoes for it. But other than that it's almost done!

Lastly I'm planning to finally make the Wearing History Sailor Play Suite (which I bough the patter and material for last summer). I wanted to make this for VAW last year but just didn't get around to it.

The only other things I really have to figureout is what to do with my hair for the Regency and Victorian era costumes. If you follow me on Instagram then you already know that I just got a major haircut (15 inches cut off leaving me with a bob perfect for the 1920's!).

I'm not so worried about the Regency hair because I'm planning on doing a turban. As for the 1870's... I have no idea's at the moment. I'm contemplating getting some hair extensions but I really don't want to spend the money on it right now.

Well, that's all for now. I'll do my best to keep things updated!

What Exactly is Couture?

Earlier this week at work the subject of my 1871 dress came up. My boss asked me how it went since I mentioned the week before that I had just received 12 yards of fabric for it and was planning on spending my weekend working on it.

I told her that I spent the weekend cartridge pleating the skirt and since most people aren't familiar with these strange terms us costumers use, I offered to show her a picture. I also mentioned a little bit of the process with it all being stitched by hand and she said "oh, well doesn't that make it couture then?"

The cartrige pleating on my skirt thus far. The waistband is about 90% done.

Besides knowing that couture is high end and expensive, I don't really know what classifies something as couture. So I decided to do some research. What exactly does make an item couture, or haute couture? That's what this post is about.

Haute Couture is French for high fashion.  A couture garment is typically sewn completely by hand and draped specifically for the person wearing it.

I think one of the most noticeable things to me about couture is the way the fabric on some dresses is manipulated and draped. It's just so amazing to see how many different ways a single piece of fabric can be shaped, and how unique each and every piece of clothing is. It's really remarkable.

One of my favorite couture designers, Elie Saab.

The types of fabrics used are generally the highest quality natural fibers. Fabrics such as silk, cashmere, fine wool, leather, and furs are commonly used.

Prices for couture garments can be anywhere from $20,000 to over $100,000 for a single item. Sure that's expensive, but for the people who can afford it it means getting a one of a kind garment made specifically for them. Today there are only around 2,000 women in the world that actually buy couture clothing.

No couture collection is complete without a Christian Dior.

In conclusion, haute couture is a simple idea but it's all in the details that makes it special. I suppose that you could classify my dress under couture if you wanted to, but I feel like that's a little misleading. At least at this point in my costuming journey.

Look, I made a thing!

It feels like forever since I actually made something! Other than mock ups I haven't actually made anything in a couple of months. And I made it just in time for the 3rd HSM challenge, YAY!

This last week I've been sick but I was feeling good enough to sew over the weekend. I was working on the mock up for my 1871 dress and I decided that I would need something to add some modesty to the low neckline.

In my research I've noticed that this type of thing wasn't a huge fashion fad at the time, but I was seeing similar things, coverings for the low necklines (a lot of them, I suspect, were removable to so the dress could also be worn in the evening without having to make a whole new bodice).

I pulled out my old Simplicity 1818 pattern that I've had literally forever (it was one of the first patterns I ever bought) and dug through my pathetic excuse of a stash to find some fabric. Luckily I actually had fabric that would work and that I liked!

I had the hardest time with the collar. As usual, the instructions were making no sense to me and the only reason I figured it out at all was because of the pictures. And even those were tough to decipher. What's worse is that the pieces weren't even the correct size!  It ended up taking me till the next day to figure it out.

 

The Challenge: Stash Busting

Fabric: White cotton (I think were old sheets) and printed cotton

Pattern: Simplicity 1818, although I did deviate from the pattern just a little bit.

Year: Technically 1860's but I'll be using it for the early 1870's

Notions: Buttons and ribbon

How historically accurate is it? I really have no idea, but I'm just gonna say 60%

Hours to complete: Probably around 5? It took me forever to figure out the collar

First worn: Not yet, as soon as I finish my 1871 dress

Total cost: $0.00! Wahoo! I suppose if you were to buy it new it would cost around $10-15?

The 1871 Dress

I've decided that before I make the Wishing Dress that I want to make a dress from the same era I'm basing the dress off of, the early 1870's. I'm doing this since I've never made a historical dress before, and while I'll learn a lot when I do the mock up, I want to be familiar with the techniques and other aspects of the dress. Also, I want to make it with directional fabric since the Wishing Dress has directional fabric and I don't have any experience with matching up patterns.

The pattern I chose is from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 2; the 1870-1 dress. I still need to get the patter enlarged, but I got impatient and started on the skirt. I measured it all out myself and have the muslin cut and the pieces pinned together.

I'm thinking I may change the neckline to this though. 1 because it's almost identical to the Wishing Dress, and 2 because I think I like this better than what the pattern has.

Dress ca. 1875

As for the fabric, I'm still figuring that out. I want to make the dress blue for some reason (perhaps because that's what the dress the pattern is based off of is) but I still don't know what type of material I want to use.

The pattern has 2 difference bodices, one for day wear and the other for the evening, so I'm going to need a fabric that would be suitable for an evening dress as well as a day dress.