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| After the Ball |
The gown above is what I wore to the Mascheranda Ball during Carnivale in Venice. It was one of the last balls (probably
the last one this year) for the Carnivale season. I had fun (even if I almost fainted at one point) and absolutely loved my gown. It needs some small touches, but overall, it is one of my favorites so far.
The Inspiration:
The
Couture Courtesan did a stunning recreation of the gown a few years ago that I got to see in person at one point. I really hadn't planned on making my own recreation but the silk taffeta I used was only €3 a meter and I cannot pass up a deal like that. Also, it is exactly the right color to make the gown. The silk taffeta begged to be made into Felicity's Christmas Gown. Since I've always been a fan of the pink front stomacher, I decided to go with that instead.
When planning out the gown, I wanted to keep it semi-historical as possible. I wasn't going to handsew the entire thing but I didn't want to get too anachronistic either. So, I decided to keep the colors and overall shape of the stomacher (more on that in a bit), the trim type (ie, the way it goes up and down the robings and is pleated), and the matching petticoat. When researching dresses with similar trims, I kept coming back to one thing:
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| Woman's Dress and Petticoat (Robe à la française) - LACMA |
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| Robe á la Francaise- Nordiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden |
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| Robe à la Française - MET |
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They were all Robe à la Françaises and not Anglaise. So, a Robe à la Française it is! I may have bought uh....10 or so meters of the blue silk taffeta so I wasn't worried about fabric usage. At all.
The stomacher on Felicity's dress is, of course, meant to kinda look right while also be expedient for making a doll's dress for little girls to play with. The ombre pink ribbon with a twist in the middle isn't exactly period. However, a very similar "look" was - this:
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| Portrait d'une femme en robe de satin bleu, 1760 Christian Friedrich Reinhold von Lisiewski |
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| Manchester Art Gallery |
I kept with the three daggings meeting to make it look more like Felicity's dress, rather than add additional ones. I used silver buttons, rather than pearls, mainly because I lost my beading needle and have no idea where it is. I need to order a new one.
The materials:
The blue silk taffeta was really only €3 a meter at my local thrift store. Once a season, they get in the "not quite right" fabrics from the designers in Milan. These fabrics sometimes have something wrong with them - a spot here or a bit of undyed yarn. I saw the orange stickers on the blue taffeta but I have zero idea what is wrong with it. It looks fine to me.
The pink shantung I got from
Silks Unlimited on ebay for $17 a yard. They, luckily, have a pretty good selection and the color was exactly what I needed. I bought 5 yards and maybe used a 1/4 of that?
The silver trim is some trim I bought, I think, back in 2016 as part of a very large, very big bin of "just take it!" at a SCA shopping event known as Holiday Faire. The entire bin (think enough to stuff a body in tubberware container) was $15. And yes, I stuffed all the trims from that bin into my suitcase last year and brought them over with me. Because...necessary.
The silver buttons were also stash.
The Pattern:
Technically, I used this:
To make a Robe à la Française. Yes, it's not a Robe à la Française pattern. In fact, my pattern, I seemed to have lost the sleeve too. Basically, this was only a base and I went off from there. I also
drafted my own sleeve again.
The gown:
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| The skirt |
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| The gown |
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| The stomacher looking wonky |
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| Me, with the dress half off! Ha! |
It's not perfect, but I love it! I still have some of the blue taffeta and a lot of the pink left. I might make a very different gown out of it now that the Felicity one is out of the way!
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