1795-1799 Half-Robe

Plans are in the works to make a regency-era half robe.  Out come my two favourite books - Nancy Bradfield's Costumes in Detail and Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1. Both of these books are indispensable to a costumer's collection.

1795-1800 half robe as illustrated in Patterns of Fashion 1.

1799 Half Robe from Costumes in Detail

Underneath the half robe will be a round robe (or round gown) like the one that is presented in Norah Waugh's book, The Cut of Women's Clothes.

Janet Arnold's archive material online at last!

And many thanks to fiofiorina for this news: At the 2008 Costume Colloquium Mary Westerman Bulgarella, Santina Levy, Thessy Schönholzer Nichols and Roberta Orsa Landini handed over crates and crates of Janet Arnold's archive material to the Sopraintendenza of the Pitti Palace Costume Gallery, with the promise of this being digitalised. Here is the digitalised archive, at least parts of it, as the work isn't finished yet.


http://archiviomedici.costume-textiles.com/cerca_lecture.asp?clect=1 


To access the pictures in colour (not dimly lit as in the Galleria) go to "Lectures".

http://archiviomedici.costume-textiles.com/imgarchivio/L.I.12.jpg

1780s Dress Trimming

When you start looking at 1780s gowns you notice that a fair number were untrimmed and that many were made of linen or cotton chintz. I have chosen to make a special gown of printed silk, and to trim it as was done on the Snowshill gown.

Above is a diagram of the trim from Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion I of another gown, yet it looks similarly folded to the cream silk polonaise I am copying. The trim is sewn around the neckline and down the front edges of the overskirt. In the drawings of this gown it is hard to see the whole trim, and only on close examination do we see how it is actually made.

The skirt trim is shown above. Below is a close-up of the trim, showing a stuffed circular puff at regular intervals.

I plan to cut long strip of self-fabric and then to sew narrow trimmings onto each side of the strips before folding and attaching. I don't think I will have a chance to bring out my new 'old' hand pinking tools with this dress unless I choose to do a pinked flounce on the underskirt.

Upcoming costume book/pattern releases...

Lynn Sorge-English, who developed the stays pattern system that Williamsburg now uses, told us on Friday that she is planning to release a book with some of that information.


There are at least three more Janet Arnold Books to be released in the near future. We got to see some of the draft pages but were unable to take pictures.


Sandra Altman from Past Patterns is developing an 1850s bloomer pattern taken from a San Diego collection.

Regency Gowns

I had a shock yesterday. I filled in a calculator to see if it was profitable to sell my regency gowns. I found that if I wanted to earn a base wage I should be selling them for approx. $400. I couldn't believe it!
I've already had to go and raise the prices on all my garments because of shipping rates getting the fabric here. I felt horrible doing this but it is not fair to my family to make these beautiful gowns for a loss. Don't worry, I'm still keeping the costs down as much as I'm able.
I've re-vamped my website to reflect the new prices and am adding new gowns to the collection to include ones made using the patterns from Janet Arnold's 'Patterns of Fashion'.
Last night I put a few up on ebay, for a much reduced rate than normal to see if I can catch a few sales while I have time up my sleeve.