Historical Sew Monthly Challenge: Tucks and Pleating

The Challenge:  Tucks & Pleating – make a garment that features tucks and pleating for the shape or decoration

Material:  Silk Taffeta

Pattern:   My own, I think.  I don't quite remember as I cut it out two years ago and never sewed it together.  

Year:   1760's

Notions:  The gold trim and the purple cording I got at Jomar's many years ago now.  The metal findings I got at Hobby Lobby and Michael's.

How historically accurate is it?  The dress itself is entirely handsewn.  The petticoat I made when I cut out the dress and it's machine sewn.  The stomacher is a mix of both - all the "showy" stuff is handsewn but the inside channel and the inside seams along the edges are machine sewn.  

Hours to complete:  Two years?  So, I cut this out in 2013 and just never, ever got to it.  I had to recut it a bit since I've lost weight since then.  Really, it took maybe a couple of weeks to get this done.

First worn:  Francaise Dinner 2016

Total cost:  I remember paying about $120 for the silk taffeta, I think.  I got it in New York.  I think the cording was only $3 for the entire 48 yards and the other trim was about 50 cents a yard - I used three for the project.   The bodice is lined in linen and I used scrap fabric for the inner lining of the stomacher (a small piece of fabric that was once part of a huge bolt of about 25 yards that I got for $5 for the bolt at the thrift store so I doubt it would even be considered to be more than a couple of pennies).  The metal findings were about $20 or a little over that. 

Inspiration:

For the trim inspriation, I was heavily influenced by styles like this:

Royal Ontario Museum

Notice skirt opening is lined in one trim and the wavy lines are outside of that to the sides.

Palais Galleria

This one from the same time period (1750's) has one trim to the inside and a larger self trim to the outside.  The self trim is edged in what looks like may be the same trim to the inside.

Using these any many more images as my inspiration, I did the metallic trim to the inside of the dress and the self trim to the outside and up the robings.

The pleated self trim is to the outside, lined in a wisteria colored cording.  The metallic trim also has some of that wisteria color in it.   Neither are natural materials but that look good on the dress.

I continued the self trim up the robings as well.  In this picture, I tried on the dress before adding the sleeves to make sure it fit.  

For the stomacher, my inspiration were the extant metallic stomachers like this:

Or the drawings of them like this:

http://images.collection.cooperhewitt.org/38880_2bef664bc0f73522_b.jpg

I wanted something that would match the necklace I would end up wearing with the dress so I used a lot of "gold" findings.

Some images of the final dress thanks to Angela!