Second Empire Style Part Two

Enough on the stays as awesome as they are.  Let's start with the most basic of undies, the chemise.  Yes, there is a specific Empire style chemise!

The Homemaker: An Illustrated Monthly Mag, Volumes 9-10

From 1892.  Although I'm sure a normal chemise would be fine, it's interesting that there were even Empire styled chemises during the Second Empire time period.

I probably should explain the term "Second Empire" as well.  Many people use "Reform" or "Aesthetic" almost interchangeably for this style of dress that I'm looking into.  However, the term "Reform" isn't used as commonly to describe the dress style in period literature. Rather, it's used to describe the change in fashions and the movement towards getting rid of the corset.  The term "Empire" is used to describe the dress style.  Now, that's not to say "Reform" wasn't ever used - just that I only saw it used far more sparingly than the term Empire. 

One of the places I saw the term "Second Empire" mentioned was in Godey's November 1893.

However, because there is "Second Empire", other magazines, namely Harper's Bazar Jan 7, 1893 mentions fashions of the "First Empire" to differentiate the two styles.

The Empire style - typically referred to as reform by most costumers- wasn't regulated to tea gowns.

Harper's Bazar Jan 1893

 Although the scan is of a poor quality, you can easily see the coloration difference between the skirt and the bodice of the Reception gown above.  There were also Wedding gowns:

Homemaker Magazine 1893

1890 Wedding Gown

1894 Wedding Dress

And there were ballgowns:

Harper's Bazar Feb 1893

Basically, no matter the activity, there was an Empire dress for that.  In fact, there is a wonderful article in the Ladies Home Journal from July 1893 on Dressing without a Corset.  It goes into some of the various styles and the usefulness of dress reform.

Hopefully, having established that the dress was indeed meant for everyday wear and not just for lounging around at home and that the dress was a stylish mode in the early 1890's, I'd like to go back to this image:

Delineator Feb 1893

There are three different Empire styles available as patterns on this page.  I actually found an extant dress that is very similar to the pattern on the bottom left:

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

The extant dress is made out of puce colored wool with sky blue silk taffeta sleeves and yoke.  Although the sleeves are more stylized than in the pattern and the yoke doesn't have the high collar, the wool part of the dress matches perfectly to the Delineator pattern.   I was really excited to find this because, although the museum doesn't have multiple images up, it does give me an idea of how it might actually have been worn. 

I believe the reason we don't see more examples of extant Second Empire dresses wasn't due to their perceived lack of popularity, but because of what happened about 15 years later when the neo-directorate styles (typically called the "Titanic" styles in the costuming world) came into being.  Take off the sleeves, put new ones shorter ones on, rip out the yoke and...you have a reasonably fashion dress for the late Edwardian, early teens era.  Given the yardage in the skirt of the Second Empire gowns, it's wouldn't be hard to take some of that fabric to create the new sleeves so no one would be able to tell you are just raiding your Mom's closet...or your own closet.

That's not to say there aren't any others - I actually found several including possibilities on my other blog- just that it doesn't seem to be the majority of survivors from this period.  

Next, hopefully, I'll be able to post about my horrible construction techniques to get a semi reasonable pair of Second Empire stays!

Second Empire Style in the 1890's part one

Over the past few days I've done a lot of research on the "Empire" style in the early 1890's.  There is still a ton of research to do, but I thought I'd share what I've discovered so far.

What started me on this track was the fact I did not want to make a bustle gown.  I love the look of a bustle gown.  They are stunning to behold.  However, they style I happen to like is the super crazy takes-way-too-many-hours-of-pain trimmed out styles.  I have some lovely orange silk and bone silk brocade that would make a stunning gown together...but I just have too many other projects right now and can't spend the time to make the dress exactly as I want it to be.  So, for a "simple" Victorian bustle, I saw a few of the seaside bustles and contemplated doing those.

However, I just didn't feel that that really was what I wanted to do either.  I wanted 1890's with stupid big sleeves of enormity and swooping skirts.  I haven't done a period correct 1890's before and figured I could suck it up, wear the generic "bustle era" Strawberry Shortcake corset I made a few years ago under anything 1890's.  Yet, another issue.  The idea of driving two or so hours in a corset just didn't appeal to me.  At all.   Those that have driven in a corset know why.  Those that haven't, try driving with a back brace that won't let you lean back and you have to sit up bone straight the entire two hours.   It's not fun.

Enter in my (Re)discovery of the Empire stays:

I wrote a bit about these the other day.  I've since discovered a couple more styles.

Harper's bazar: Volume XXVI, Number 8

             Harper's bazar: Volume XXVI, Number 2

Both of the above are taken from different issues of Harper's Bazar in 1893. I haven't looked into other years yet but both of these tell an interesting story already. First, the Empire corset terminates at the waistline. Even the "health corsets" (or "waists" as they were sometimes called) of the time extended over the hips. Although, there is this extant one that - based on the web archive- is a health corset:

Web Archive Link to Antique Corset Gallery

However, after seeing the Regency corset, I began to doubt that it was an 1875 health corset. On the archived website, it states:
First advertised in 1875, this example is most likely from the late 1870's. A black sateen sanitary corset made by the Warner Bros. Corset Company. The sanitary corset was the created by two brothers who were physicians, I. De Ver Warner and Lucien C. Warner when they became alarmed by the effects a badly fitting corset could have on the health of a woman.
Given that information, I searched for patents by De Ver Warner filed during the 1870's (1871-1880). I found a few:

1878 Corset Patent

1875 Corset Patent

1877 Corset Patent

1877 Corset Patent

1879 Corset Patent

The first thing I noticed was that all the corsets depicted here extend below the natural waistline, unlike the extant black health corset. Also, none of them have buttons. (Sorry, I have a love for button front corsets so it's the first thing I notice!) Noticing differences, I decided to conduct a search on Empire stays from 1885 to 1895 to see what would turn up. Nothing. I tried a ton of different searches and finally found this:

1912 Brassiere Patent

Although some of the shaping is different from the extant black one, I believe that there are enough similarities that the black one is just the predecessor of this brassiere. Mainly, the up and down stays, the length, the shoulder straps, and, most importantly, the rows of elastic in the back.

The more research I did, the more I became convinced that the black extant garment is not a "health corset" but an early example of a brassiere or bust supporter. However, I believe that it's too late in style to be included as part of the "Second Empire" fashion examples for now. I might look up more later but I doubt it's before 1895 and, as I'll show, the Second Empire fashions tend to be from 1892 to 1894.

1890's Sewing Plans

Typically, when you think 1890's undergarments, you think this:

Taken from Vintage Ads

Or something similar.  The good ole Victorian corset.  However, there are examples of "reform" corsets and early bras being worn instead of the tight waist corsets we are used to thinking about.   For example:

This terminates above the natural waistline.   I also love the button front.  

This one is higher up and more "bra" like.   It has adjustable straps, made out of linen, and another fabulous button front.  (Busks and I do not get along.  Ever.)

Lest anyone think that the above are just anomolies and weren't really worn, here is a graphic from the Feb 1893 issue of the Delineartor. 

Pattern 4936 is of "short stays".  The article says this about them:
Wholly practical substitutes for the ordinary long-waisted corsets, which cannot be worn with Empire gowns, are the Empire short stays, that are shaped according to pattern No. 4936, which costs 10d. or 20 cents.

So, no only was a fashion magazine making a pattern for them at the time, they were also suggesting against wearing an ordinary corset with the Empire waist fashions.   Woohoo!  (Although the run on sentence structure makes my eye all twitchy.)

I love the idea of short stays for a couple of reasons.  One, I love Empire waist fashions.  Two, I can drive in short stays for a long period of time.  A corset?   Not so much.  

My plan, right now, is to make a pair of Victorian short stays and then make an 1890's Empire waisted dress.  

For the dress, I have a few inspirational images. 

1892 Wedding Dress

Feb 1893

1892 Afternoon Dress

1893

I'm trying to decide on fabrics right now and only use stash fabric.  I have some lightweight gray wool and some bright pink wool that look really neat together.  However, most of the time it looks like the contrast with 1890's dresses were out of a different material - typically either silk or velvet.  I have a few different silks - red, pink, orange, blue, turquoise- and a few different wools I can play with.   Once I get the short stays done, I'll figure out the dress. 

Historical Food Fortnightly #22

The Challenge:Make It Do or Do Without


The Recipe: (where did you find it, link to it if possible) This is something I've made many times before.

Kidney Beans. Cook the kidney beans in pure water or in good broth; when they are cooked, get finely sliced onions and fry them in a pan with good oil and put these fried onions on top [of the beans] along with pepper, cinnamon and saffron; then let this sit a while on the hot coals; dish it up with good spices on top.

The Date/Year and Region: 15th Century, Italian


How Did You Make It: (a brief synopsis of the process of creation) This is really simple to make - which is why I make it so much. I just open a can of kidney beans, drain em, and fry them in some oil with onions, cinnamon, pepper, saffron, and salt. I put this on top of a bed of rice - this time I made the rice with salt, water, and saffron. It's become something of a comfort food during Lent.


Time to Complete: about 20 minutes because of how long the rice takes to cook.


Total Cost: I always have rice on hand. And saffron. And pepper. And salt. And cinnamon. Kidney beans were only $1.29 a can and the onions were $2.50 a bag. I only used half of one onion. Basically, this is a very cheap dinner.


How Successful Was It?: (How did it taste? How did it look? Did it turn out like you thought it would?) It's really quite good. It's just basic comfort food really.

How Accurate Is It?: (fess up to your modifications and make-dos here) I cooked it on an oven but other than that, there probably isn't much difference.

The reason I chose this one for this challenge (I made this again on Thursday) was for a couple of reasons. It's a Lenten recipe- Lent is all about not having meat, eggs, dairy, or really any animal products except fish. You had to ration what you had and both rice and beans keep well for a long time.

I also wanted to use it because I should have cooked the rice in either almond milk (too sweet for this recipe) or veggie broth (which I didn't have) so I went with plain old water with a bit of salt. They clearly had both in the middle ages so I'm not worried about how accurate the recipe is.

Easter Dress!

Better and more pictures later!

I used Simplicity 1961 for the pink knit jacket and Simplicity 9103 for the cream knit dress. I used the jacket pattern as is - no changes. I just cut it out of some pink knit I've been wanting for months at Joann's and followed the directions - sort of. I've made up this jacket a couple of times before. It's a nice, 3/4 sleeve knit jacket that works well both for work clothing and with just jeans.

The dress pattern is my favorite modern clothing dress pattern. It's ridiculously simple. I made the sleeveless version and made it shorter than the pattern because I wanted it above the knee. It's only a little over a yard of fabric but the dress is so versatile. I also added lace to the hem.

The lace top is loosely based on the dress pattern. I used it for the armholes and the neckline. However, it goes out at the sides and has a slight handkerchief hem.

I machine stitched everything using the stretch settings on my Singer Heavy Duty machine. It's much slower than the serger but the serger refused to behave...again.

Super Secret Project Revealed!

For the past couple of months, I've mentioned a super secret project to some of my friends. I was really excited to try something "new" and something I hadn't seen in person before. I made a yarn wig. I was heavily inspired by Rocking the Frock's Steampunk yarn wig. It involves elements I know how to do - mostly knitting, crocheting, and sewing with nice big yarn strands.

First, I created a knit cap. I cast on 64 stitches in the round on size 7 needles. The yarn I used was really stretchy. I tried to cast on 72 or even 80 and...way, way too big. I did 2x2 ribbing around the edge for an inch and then just did knit all the way around, increasing the stitch count to 70 to accommodate my own hair. Once it got to 7" in height, I decreased once in the middle of each needle and at the end of each needle. On the sides, I added "mini" side burns to cover up my hairline well. I tried on the hat, put pins where my ear started and where the hairline went back up under the hat. I basically put ten stitches to each needle and the knitted triangles - with the right angle towards the ear- before the ear.

I then put the hat down and wanted to wrap some yarn around one of those long hot dog balloons to make curls. My original plan was to wrap the yarn, pour a water glue mixture all over the yarn, and then pop the balloon once the glue dried. That ended up not happening because the hot dog balloons were one to a mixed bag at the dollar store and not a single bag I bought (all three!) had a usable hot dog balloon. Either the balloon had a hole or it just wouldn't blow up. It might have been me - I'm sick with pneumonia (medication for the win!)- but I could get the regular balloons to blow up just fine. Anyway, then plan went bust. So, instead, I took some cardstock, rolled it up tight, taped it, and then wrapped it in plastic wrap. This served to wrap the yarn around and make the curls.

Above is one of the curls after I cut it from the rest of the wrapped yarn (I just measured about 3 1/2" and cut the yarn at that point) and shimmied the curl off the cardstock.

While I was letting the glue dry, I started to cut a lot of yard long strands of yarn to add as "hair" all the way around the bottom of the hat. I also added a second line of hair around the original bottom of the hat where the triangles were and the back of the hat. This gave an added amount of thickness. I didn't have to add any hair to the top since my own hair - which is about a yard itself- would be adding the height and stability to the hat.

The hat after the round of strands were added.  It looked a bit ridiculous.

The above are pictures of all the strands pushed back and around. It's already starting to look like...hair!  However, I still needed to add some pieces.  First, I took about 30 strands that were slightly longer than the distance between my ears across my forehead.  I braided these and put the braid right at the edge of the hat, draping the strands over it.  This gave a bit of volume right at the front of the wig.   I then carefully sewed the front strands to the hat - and more to each other than the knit hat really- to help create an even look.  In the back, I sewed a few of them down but also sewed the curls to the back of the wig.  I also added a braid to the back to give it more of the look I was going for.   Because it looked plain, I added a little "cap" to the front with a pink bow.

The nice thing about this wig is you couldn't see my hair at all.  Also, it was warm -which was lovely considering it was snowing when I left for the event.  Just flurries but still, it wasn't exactly warm outside.

The wig has a lot more volume on me and I'll try to get some photos up of me wearing the wig soon.

Historical Sew Fortnightly March Stashbusting Challenge

The Challenge:March – Stashbusting: Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims & notions that you already have in stash.


Fabric: A I'm-not-sure-what-it-is-but-it-has-silk lampas like drapery fabric probably circa 1976. I also used dark green silk dupioni and sand colored linen in the dress. Oh, and muslin...

Pattern: My own! :-)

Year: 1750's/1760's more or less

Notions: Silk thread, cotton thread, ribbon trim

How historically accurate is it? It looks much better than it actually is. The fabric is too heavy for the period but the design is pretty well in keeping with the later half of the 18th century styles (mix of floral and stripes). All the visible stitching is done by hand as are the stitches holding the skirt pleats to the back bodice.

Hours to complete: If it weren't for the sleeves, I'd guess only 16 hours or so. Because of the sleeves, it took 22, I think...

First worn: Hopefully, this Saturday!

Total cost: All stash! Every last thing. The linen I used for the hem was one of those Joann's remnants I hoard. It was a half yard and 50% off so, maybe $4.50 USD? The green dupioni was also a Joann's remnant. Probably another $3 or $4 USD there. The main dress fabric I bought back in November off of ebay for $17.99 USD with another $16 for shipping (did I mention it's heavy?). The silk thread I got on sale for $2 sometime last year (I just remember there was a sale on silk thread so I gobbled up a few different colors). The trim....I don't remember where I got it or how much it was. I *think* it was one my NYC trips but I really don't know. Knowing me, I doubt I paid more the $2 a yard.

I draped the patten using an old bedsheet.  I've mentioned before how much I hated these sheets.  They used to be in my room at my family's beach home.  When Mom said she got them from my room, I thought she meant the lovely blue and white ones....  

Anyway, I originally cut it to do a closed front anglaise but I didn't like that idea and went with the stomacher front instead.

The back pleats are all very pinned into place.  Only the right side is draped and drafted for the final pattern in this photo.  

This is what my animals were doing while I was draping fabric.

Eventually, Abby decided to investigate why I was taking pictures of things other than her.  This is the final pattern for the back, front, and sleeves of the dress.

I cut out and pleated the back as well as I could.  It's still a little wonky at the top but if it really bugs me later, I can always patch it over with more fabric.  

I had to cut the fabric long ways and make sure the floral pattern was running down the dress correctly. More on the fabric itself later.

To do the front robing, I just made the fashion fabric 2" longer width wise towards the front.  I then sewed it to the lining along the front edge.  Once I matched the side edges together, this created a small overlap in the fashion fabric towards the front.  I stitched along the channel (where the fashion fabric met the lining at the front) by hand and used this as a guide to fold the robings.  

This is where I folded it and hopefully the photos make more sense.  I then ironed it down before attaching it to the back bodice section.  

The full finished dress!!

Close up detail of the sleeve.  I added the ribbon trim to the cuff edges as well as the front of the stomacher.  Despite having five yards, just doing the cuffs and the stomacher used every last inch of trim I had.

The back of the dress.  It looks more wonky that it really is because the dress dummy doesn't have arms.

The lining of the cuffs.  I wanted something that would go well with the dress.  I was going to cannibalize a UFO that had spring green silk when I saw this dark green remnant in my stash that went a lot better.  (okay, I compared the spring green to the fabric and...no.  Just no.  So I ran back and got the dark green.  It looked way better) 

The stomacher front.  I took what was left of the trim and ran it down the center stripe.  I had just enough left.

And this is what is left of the fabric I used for the dress.  It's maybe a half yard.  It's enough to do the sleeves over if I wanted to.  

Evil sleeves.   Okay, so the first time I put them in, it was totally my fault.  I matched the seams wrong and had to rip them out.  Fine.  Then the right sleeve kept giving me trouble.  It would bunch up at odd points or it wouldn't line up correctly.  It took 3 1/2 tries (the last time it bunched up , I just ripped out that section and redid it) before the sleeve looked okay.   

The fabric:  Well, truth be told - you are looking at only 4 yards of fabric.  With most 18th C dresses, you do need 9 yards - and even that doesn't feel like enough- because you need the matching petticoat, the dress, the self trims....tons and tons of fabric.   This fabric is over 52" wide (I'm not sure by how much, I measured the skirt and its 104" around so...not sure how much got eaten up into the seams).  This helped a lot for the skirts.   The front skirt is just a rectangular panel - 41" long- that I pleated to a strip of the fabric (3" wide strip that folded over).   The back of the dress isn't much different (just the back panel of the bodice plus a 41" long skirt).  Because of this,  I cut out the front from the excess above the back panel skirt, next to the back bodice.   

The sleeves and cuffs were cut out from the remaining fabric and the stomacher was cut out even more scrap (from next to the front bodice piece).  I used a little less than 4 yards to make the dress.  

Inspiration:

Dress at the Met circa 1760

This was the main inspiration for my dress.  I was going to do the self trim along the opening but the fabric really is just too heavy to do that well.  That, and I didn't have any of the ribbon trim left. ;-)

Other inspiration pieces included this early 1770's dress at the Met, this pink and green dress recently sold at Christies (probably early 18th C based on the robings), and this one at the Met as well.  

Because of the yardage issue, I liked the idea of a closed front dress.  I liked the overall style as well because none of them are overly trimmed - it's more about letting the patterned fabric speak for itself.