I (Re) Made a Historically Accurate 18th Century American Girl Felicity Dress for Me!

Like a lot of kids of my generation who grew up in the 90s, I loved American Girl dolls. And I fully credit them with encouraging my love of history and especially historical clothing. I didn't actually have an American Girl doll growing up because they're really expensive even today, but I loved looking through the catalogs and daydreaming about all of those amazing clothes. I thought that Felicity had the best wardrobe of all of the dolls. Her Christmas blue gown and green riding habit were the stuff of dreams, and they stuck with me until I was 22 years old and for my birthday finally got my very own American Girl doll and all of her clothes and accessories. Back in 2015, I decided to make my very own historically accurate version of Felicity's Christmas dress. I wanted it to be as accurate to 1774 as possible while still being recognizable as Felicity's dress. My biggest deviation was to make it a sackback or robe a la francaise, because I had always wanted one and never made one up until that point. For five years, I was really happy with the gown. But a lot can change in that time and the gown no longer fits, plus it's not a good representation of my current skill level. I've gotten to take workshops with Brooke Wellborn through Berlin Trowbridge Company and greatly increased my knowledge of 18th century dressmaking techniques. So a few weeks ago, and with Christmas approaching, I decided that it was the right time to completely remake my Felicity gown so that it would fit better and be a better representation of my skills. I also really liked the idea of converting it from a sackback gown to an English fitted back gown. Taylor of Dames a la Mode did this, and I really enjoyed seeing the transformation. Plus, it's a very period practice to update an existing gown to a more fashionable style. The first thing to do, of course, was completely take the gown apart. I was weirdly excited for this and found it strangely satisfying. With the gown unstitched, you can see that there is plenty of fabric in what used to be the sackback pleats to get refolded into an English back gown like this. When the pleats were the way that I wanted them, I basted them down to prepare them for stitching. The pleats are stitched with a spaced backstitch, and this is done about a quarter of an inch away from the folded edge of the pleat. It's a detail that you see in many extant gowns from this time period. I needed to cut new bodice fronts for the gown, but the scraps that I had left over from making it the first time weren't going to be big enough. Luckily, Silk Baron had a taffeta that was extremely close to the original color. The bodice fronts get stitched to the back with a spaced backstitch just like the pleats, but this time they're done much closer to the edge. Once the outer silk of the bodice is sewn down, I can turn to the inside and stitch down the linen lining, which covers all of the raw edges. This is done with a felling stitch. Now I need to cut the skirt away from the back of the bodice. This line should follow the curve that goes from the side back seams down to the bottom of the pleats. It can be a little nerve wracking to cut this because you really only get one shot at it. Once both sides are cut, I can pleat the skirt to fit the sides of the bodice. To attach the bodice to the skirt, the bottom edge of the bodice gets turned under, and then it's topstitched on top of the skirt pleats. I also needed to cut completely new sleeves, which I did out of the new silk. The sleeves are trimmed with a gathered cuff, which is similar to the gathered cuff that's on Felicity's dress. Luckily, this was a detail that I could document to 1774 slash 1775, so I didn't have to change that design element. The last piece that I needed to remake was the stomacher. I've always preferred the lace stomacher as opposed to the pink ribbon one, so that was the one that I wanted to make. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time documenting this style to the 1770s. The closest I could come was this 1760 portrait. So in the interest of accuracy, both to history and to Felicity, I have two stomachers as well. A lace one, like Felicity's, and a blue silk one that is trimmed in the style that you would see commonly in the 1770s. I'm really pleased with how the gown turned out, and I'm so glad that I took the time to remake it. Now, the only thing left to do is put everything on and get some pictures. The first layers are a linen shift and a cotton mock quilt petticoat, as well as shoes, stockings and garters. My stays are patterned after an example in Patterns of Fashion 5. They're made with a blue worsted wool outer layer, linen interlining, and synthetic whalebone for boning. All of the materials came from Burnley & Trowbridge Company. Even though Felicity has pocket hoops, I wanted to make a single hoop petticoat because these are somewhat underrepresented in the historical costuming community today. I based it off of a few excellent examples, including this one from the Kyoto Costume Institute. It's made from blue linen and has basket cane for the hoops. I like to wear another petticoat over the hoops to help soften the line and add additional fullness. The matching petticoat for the gown has a panel of checked linen in the back, since this won't be seen once the gown is worn. That way, it saves the precious silk for use in other places. Finally, I can put on the gown, which closes in front with a stomacher. This style of gown was very common throughout the entire 18th century, and it was really only in about 1775 that you start to see center front closing gowns become more common. First I pin the stomacher to my stays. Next, the sides of the gown are pinned to the stomacher. Finally, I'm pinning the robings in place. I chose to leave them unattached to the gown, except at the shoulders, because this is something that you sometimes see on extant gowns. The finishing touches are lace elbow ruffles and a lace neck tucker to fill in the neckline. Even though it's adorable, Felicity's pinner cap isn't accurate to the 1770s. It was probably based on examples like these from the 1750s, but it would have been woefully out of fashion by 1774. To give the same look, I'm going to wear a cap made of silk gauze in the style of the 1770s that's trimmed with the same blue silk as the gown. In the book Felicity's Surprise, the story of the blue gown relies on the notion that Felicity's mother could buy a pattern for the gown from the millinery shop and make it herself. But it's highly unlikely that this could have actually happened in the 18th century. While most women knew how to sew and mend simple unfitted garments like shirts, shifts, aprons, and household linens, the skill of cutting and fitting women's gowns and jackets could only have been learned in the mantle-making or dressmaking trade, which required an apprenticeship of up to seven years. Mantua-makers didn't even use paper patterns, but instead folded and pinned the fabric directly on the body, similar to draping today. Commercial sewing patterns didn't exist in the 18th century because there was no demand for them. So unless Mrs. Merriman was actually a mantua-maker before she married Felicity's father, the story of the blue gown is just a Christmas fantasy. Revisiting Felicity's stories as an adult has led to a lot of retrospection, especially as an adult who works in public history in the very city where Felicity's story took place. There are quite a few historical inaccuracies within the books, but most importantly, the relationship between Felicity's family and the people they enslaved, like Rose and Marcus and the dozens of people on her grandfather's plantation, that relationship is never really explored within the stories themselves. They do talk about slavery in colonial America in the appendices of some of the books, and in the companion book Welcome to Felicity's World. But Felicity herself, the free-spirited protagonist, never addresses this directly in any of the books. Certainly, one could argue that Felicity's acceptance of slavery is expected of a young white girl living in 18th century America, but at the same time, she's the main character of a children's series written in the 1990s, and that's what makes this troubling. This issue has been explored by the American Girls podcast and by my friend Kate over on her channel, Willoughby and Rose, and I highly recommend you check them out if you're fans of American Girl. You can also learn more about 18th and 19th century slavery in America by visiting Chaney's channel, Not Your Mama's History. As I said before, I still credit American Girl with encouraging my love of history as a kid, and while the stories may be far from perfect, I still think that they are a meaningful entryway into understanding the full history of our country. Thank you for joining me for another video, and don't forget to like and subscribe. See you next time!