Making a Victorian Bustle Gown ｜ Part I.

Hello everyone and welcome to my channel. I had been planning on making an 1870s bustle gown since last September. After spending five months making all the underpinnings, including the chemise, drawers, corset, bustle and petticoat, I finally got to make the dress itself. This is my first endeavor into the 19th century historical reconstruction, so I was really aiming at making something quick and easy. But then it just got more and more complicated, and among the 186 hours dedicated to making this gown, half of the time was probably spent on the tiny details and decorations. It is after all the Victorian era, so what can I say. Last week I posted a time-lapse of the making process as well as some clips of the dress in motion. In this video I will go deep into the making part and show you how I made the skirt and over skirt of the gown. For those of you who are not familiar with the bustle era, it is a period roughly spanning from 1870 to 1890. The silhouette of this period was defined by a protruding rear created by the cage bustle underneath, hence the name bustle period. Although the bustle style was only in fashion for 20 years, it still underwent some pretty drastic changes. In the first phase, the dress draped rather naturally in a waterfall effect. From around 1878 to 1883, dresses became much narrower at the hips, but after that large bustles became popular again and were even more rigid than ever. Personally I really liked the transitional style of 1876, so I looked at quite a few fashion plates from the year to make sure that the silhouette was as accurate as possible. The dress was entirely draped by myself, but I made a lot of reference to existing patterns and historical sources, including patterns of fashion too, some authentic Victorian patterns from Pinterest and existing dresses from museums. All of these links will be shared below. I found this gorgeous grey striped taffeta in the basement of my school a while ago, so I'll be using this for the majority of the dress. Many dresses of the period consist of a skirt, an overskirt and a bodice, all completely separated from one another. The first thing I made was the skirt, which has six panels and a five yard long hem. I left a half an inch seam allowance everywhere except for the hem, which had a four inch seam allowance. I decided to add another layer of fabric under the taffeta to give it more structure. It's probably best to use organza, but I had a lot of leftover cotton lawn from my petticoat, so I just went with that. Before jumping onto any sewing, I basted along the bottom stitch line of the skirt so that it would be easier to hem it later. Then I stacked the cotton lawn on top of the silk taffeta and hand basted them together two millimeters away from the stitch line. This method of basting individual pieces together before closing any side seam is called flat lining. While it was very common in Victorian clothemaking, nowadays it's usually only used in haute couture or theatrical costumes because it's a time-consuming task that can only be done by hand. It is a truce universally acknowledged that a Victorian lady going to a ball must be in need of a pocket to slide her phone in. I free-handed a pocket pattern and after making sure that it fits my hand and my phone, proceeded to cutting out the four pocket pieces. The top of the pocket is placed two inches below the waistline. After lining them all up, I stitched each piece onto its side seam and pressed them all open. Then I finished all the pocket, so I just pinked the seam allowance so that it wouldn't fray. I left the 10-inch opening at the right side of the skirt to make it easier to put it on. The raw edge was finished by cutting a piece of 3-inch wide fabric to make a pocket at the side opening. There are plenty of YouTube tutorials on the many different ways of making a placket, so I won't go deep into that. One of the most recognizable features of bustle dresses is that the skirt is rather flat and straight in front, while most of the fabrics are gathered at the back. I basted two rows along the waist seam allowance at the back for gathering. While the three back panels measured almost two yards at the waist, they were eventually gathered into only 12 inches. Next comes the waistband, which is one inch wide when finished and about two inches longer than the waist measurement of the skirt. I ironed down the center fold and the two half an inch seam allowance on the sides. First attach it onto the back of the skirt, and then top stitch down the front. Stitch a set of hook and bar at the top, and the waistband is done. At this point I realized that the very wide 4-inch seam allowance was not a very smart idea. Since the hem of the skirt is curved in many places, it's impossible to fold in this much seam allowance without distorting the shape of the hem. So I had to trim away most of the seam allowance and just do a simple folded hem. I was going to add all the trims on top, however as I only had nine yards of fabrics and wasn't sure if it was enough, I decided to finish the overskirt and bodice before moving on to any decorations. Spoiler alert, it was definitely not enough fabric. The overskirt I designed consists of two pieces at the front and one at the back. The patterns for all three of them are quite simple, being either a rectangle or trapezoid. To make the front apron I took apart a mock-up, marked out the position of every plate, and transferred it onto the fabric. First I hemmed the bottom. I bought five yards of this ivory colored fringe trim to decorate the bottom. Fringe and tassels are a pretty popular decoration of this period. I really wanted to buy one of those fancy cotton or silk long fringe trim, however after comparing their prices to my almost non-existent budget, I decided to go with this a hundred percent polyester and thus a hundred percent historically inaccurate trim that looks like it could be on a curtain from Amazon. After pleating up both sides of the aprons, I basted along the edge of the fabric. Pin the top and bottom pieces together and cut out a three inch wide strap to enclose the raw edges. By the way, I'm really glad I got this heavy-duty sewing machine. Considering how much I've been sabotaging it with layers and layers of fabrics, I'm honestly surprised that the needle hasn't broken even once. I did quite a bit of math when trying to figure out the width and depth of the front pleats, but I lost my patience when I got to the back so I sort of just went everything. I cut a piece of fabric from to salvage, rounded up the curves, and went straight to pleating. The top part would be covered by the bodice anyway, so the pleating was very free-form and spontaneous, but that's what art is supposed to be like, right? I did, however, make sure that the pleats were roughly symmetrical. Once I was happy with the pleating, I took it off the dress form one pleat after another, carefully pinning place along the way. At this point, the fabric got so thick that I had to hand baste everything in place before machine stitching and setting the waistband. There is a two inch overlap on each side of the front and back overskirt. I slip stitched them together on one side. On the other side, I sewed in both snaps and hooks and eyes so that the overskirt can be worn wrapped around the body instead of going overhead. The bottom half of the dress is now complete. In the next video, I will talk about how I made the bodice as well as all the trims and decorations. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe and stay tuned for the second part of the series.