A reception dress from 1901


Made in 2004

This dress is a recreation of a reception dress from 1901-1902, from Patterns of Fashion 2. It is from London Museum and is made from white silk satin and spotted silk net. It is trimmed with satin ribbon and ruched satin ribbons in a loop pattern on both skirt and net bolero. My version is made from pink cotton chintz covered with pink spotted voile. Although I don't think cotton chintz is a good substitute for satin I made an exception for this dress since it is likely it will only be worn once. You see, the reason this costume was made is that my sister decided that her 25th birthday party was going to be a fancy dress party, the theme being the period 1900-1901 (her boyfriend's 30th birthday party in a couple of years will have the theme 1910-1920 and so it will carry on). So when I found four metres of cotton chintz for less than ten dollars and already had spent a lot on the corset and being rather broke I decided to use something cheaper than satin. The spotted voile is a fabric I have been hoarding for maybe eight years. The skirt and bolero are edged with satin bias tape and I will probably eventually also make the trimmings, but with two days until the party it will have to wait.

The corset was made after the pattern in Jean Hunnisett's Period Costume for stage and screen. Because I am not only much fatter than the the pattern but also has a much longer torso I could keep the proportions from the pattern and just scale it up even more than suggested. The corset makes a good job in giving the period shape, in fact it is impossible to stand comfortably in it if you don't lean forwards as women do on pictures from that time.
This apparently applies both if you're small and if you're big. If you look at Katherine's excellent site with costumes from the 18th century and onwards you can see that even though she's very slender and I'm not, we get the same basic shape in the corset.
Later I will make a combination and a petticoat to wear under the corset, in the pictures I'm wearing a 14th century linen shift with straps. As it is the only thing that holds out the skirt is the underskirt whcih has a ruffle of spotted voile around the hem. It does a pretty good job, but another petticoat will make it even better.

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