A robe à la anglaise from ca 1770-1780
The main inspiration for this gown was the robe à la Anglaise made from dark brown cotton in a floral print on
page 104 in Fashion (the Taschen book from the Kyoto Costume Institute). It showed that you could use also darker fabrics in
the 18th century. And I had this blouseweight printed silk with an 18th century-ish pattern I wanted to use.
Made in 2007
The outfit consists of:
* A linen shift, made with rectangular construction, a wide rounded neck line and elbow lenght sleeves.
* A pair of front laced stays with separate stomacher. They're made from a linen/cotton grosgrain, where
the thick threads are "barbie-pink" and the thin yarn is acid green. It is fully boned with reeds, the only
exception being the horizontal boning in the front, which are flat steels.
* A false rump from linen herringbone twill, stuffed with polyester wadding.
All these can be seen here:
The false rump sits a little higher in the picture than it should, I pushed it down later.
You can also see my cool 18th century hairdo. Basiclly I took some cheap hairpieces from H&M that I got from my friend Anna,
turned them into a gigantic bun which I pinned to my head. Then I took my own hair and pulled it over the fake hair, twisted it to a bun and pinned it to the false hair.
It wasn't perfect, but I managed to get a reasonably god 18th century hairdo in 15 minutes, without doing anything that damages the hair; like back combing, heck, even without using
hairspray, gel or anything, because I don't have any of that at home. I will get some hair pieces that are closer to my own hair colour though; these are a sort of auburn and my
hair is dark ash brown.Here's a closer picture of the hair:
* An under petticoat made from natural/mint green coloured linen twill.
* Pockets from a reproduction 18th century cotton print.
* A petticoat in green/black shot silk.
* A gown/robe from printed blouseweight silk, lined with black linen twill. The bodice is boned with narrow german
plastic boning and cable ties in the front. It is laced together and the holes are made with an awl and bound with buttonhole silk.
* An apron from self-patterned semi-sheer linen. It closes with a hook and eye and is slightly starched. The model,
but not he fabric is a copy of a late 18th century apron that belongs to my folk costume.
* A cap made from sheer cotton and edges with cotton lace. It is a circle gathered through quite a lot of hand made eyelets and then tied around with a ribbon.
* Sleeve ruffles from cotton and cotton lace. They are currently tacked to the inside of the sleeves and will be removed when they need to be laundried.
* A neckerchief from creamy white linen.
When I was in the finishing stages of the dress I decided that I wanted to be able to wear it as a Polonaise gown too, so I added
buttons and cords so that the skirt could be looped up:
If you click on the photo and look closely you can see the buttons, a little closer to the front than the side seams.
If you want to know more about how this dress was constructed, go check out the dress diary!
