Recreating my favorite 18th Century museum gown as a modern spring dress (Part 1: Pattern Making)

The flat conical silhouette has been my obsession for about the past year, and I don't think I'll be able to let it go until I've satisfied my need to understand precisely how all of these strange shapes work, and how they form such beautiful three-dimensional objects as 18th century stays, jackets, and gowns. Though I've only half-solved the mystery of sleeves, I do believe I've about got the bodices figured out. So in this video, I'll be taking a fresh attempt. Drafting a pattern from scratch to replicate this extant gown from the Met Museum. This project will be split into two videos. This first video will cover my notes on the original dress, and the complete patterning process. In the second part, which will be posted next week, I'll cover the sewing process and the materials, including the custom printed fabric I used. The original gown is a robe a la Anglaise, dated between 1785 and 1795. It is made of cotton chintz with a matching petticoat. The fabric was most likely originally white, and has faded to more of a natural cotton color over time. The museum has graciously posted a spread view of the skirt fabric, plenty enough to see the entire repeat of the vinework design, and high definition enough that it was easy for me to replicate with fair accuracy. The bodice overlaps and probably pins closed at the front. The website states there is baleen somewhere in it, but I'm uncertain if it's stabilized in the back, or the underpinned layer of the front. Though if I was guessing, I would guess the back. This dress has a side front seam, which I noticed when I was investigating the prow front silhouette, which is a slightly more curved, natural bodice shape that became fashionable later in the 18th century. I believe this seam is used to taper the bodice in under the bust. There is also a triangular shape pieced onto the center of the bodice. It may have been added later, when split front stays began to exaggerate the prow curve. There is also a second row of stitching across the neckline. I am not certain what that was originally for, but it gave me a very exciting idea. I've been thinking of ways to slightly raise the neckline of 18th century dresses, as they were historically quite low, but made decent through use of voluminous feet shoes and neckerchiefs, which is a look that I don't personally care for. In making a dress for modern daily wear, I'd prefer a neckline that simply cuts to a higher, more comfortable level. However, cutting an 18th century neckline higher will result in gaping, and thus my excitement over the possibility of adding a drawstring channel to ease it in. There is quite a lot of piecing in this bodice, but I don't feel the need to replicate that. The back narrows in mostly at the top, and then the seams become nearly vertical. You can tell by the pattern that there are only two back pieces, and the center seams are formed with a little tuck. The shoulders are quite distinctly 18th century, the straps come in at an angle. The neckline is very narrow, and the sleeves come far to the back with a sharp corner. The sleeves only have one seam at the underarm. There is a ruffle, faded to the same color as the dress, so it presumably also used to be white. There are a lot of strange seams at the hem of the sleeves, and they don't match up between the two sides, so it's difficult to tell what's piecing and what's the actual design. But I plan to shorten the sleeves anyways, so that doesn't really matter to me. The skirt is two layers and quite voluminous. I will only be doing one layer, like a round gown. My fabric is 54 inches wide, and I would like to make the skirt with two complete panels, and a bit shorter than what would have been worn historically. I'll also be sewing modern-style pockets into the skirt, instead of open side slits. And I'll probably use a more modern closure method. So, let's get into the patterning. Okay, this is my conical base, which I drafted on the 18th century patterning video I did. I am going to be redrafting it today, because I made this one to a 34 inch bust, a 27 inch waist, and a 6.25 inch waist length. I am going to be redrafting it because, one, this one does not include the shortened back, and then two, I noticed on my Outlander bodices that I ended up shortening the waist by about a quarter of an inch all the way around. So I think I'm going to be redrafting it today. And I'm also going to do a 30, I think a 34 and a half inch bust, because most of the things I make tend to be a little bit tight. Also, I'm going to bump the waist down to 26.5, because in addition to having to add to the bust, I keep having to detract from the waist, which makes sense if you're wearing stays. And you might have noticed that since moving, my craft room is substantially smaller than it used to be, but the trade-off was worth it, I promise you. Because look at my classroom. So beautiful. Look! You know, I think it's looking pretty good. Good enough to get started with. Okay, not bad. Let's see. It's maybe a tiny bit high in the front, but not that much. The underarm actually feels pretty good. The back is harder to tell because there aren't any of the curved seams pinching any out yet. Honestly, not that bad. Okay, I'm going to trim down this a little bit. Might trim it just a tiny bit away from the armpit in the front. But this is kind of something to be going with. Once I get a mock-up cut out, then I can start pinching in the seams. I can tell that some needs pinched in at this seam right here to make the prow front, and then obviously a bunch needs pinched in at these back pieces. But you know, I'm not experienced enough to get—actually, I could kind of guesstimate it. I mean, might as well. It'll save time, because I mean, chances are I'll at least be kind of right. So yeah, maybe I'll just guesstimate it, and then I'll cut out my mock-up and see where we're at. Okay, quick and dirty mock-up done, and I'm actually really impressed with it. The front of it fits about perfectly. The prow front seam, perfect, and I was just guesstimating. Now the front is super gapey, but that's okay, because remember I'm going to add the drawstring section. It'll kind of curl down like that. Okay, the back though is a little bit trickier. Let's see if I can angle this right. Okay, if you see this wrinkle here, maybe it's fine. Maybe I just need to trim this up a little bit more. Maybe that'll pull it out. Okay, the arm size are fine. That feels good. Okay, the center back, there's a little bit of bubbly. Am I even pointing at myself? I can probably show it better this way. This is kind of poofing up a little bit on my back, which means that I need to kind of angle this curve in a little bit shallower. The angle of this line, it looks fine, but it doesn't look like the original. It needs to have a little bit more of a sharper slope. And then this top edge, I think that it's almost like it needs to be higher, but shallower. It might need to angle a little bit more this way, and then cut a little bit closer into the back. That's really the only area that I'm not exactly sure what I need to do with. I need to look at the patterns, I guess, tomorrow. But I only really worked on this for maybe two hours today, and it's already, you know, it already fits. So like, I guess it's just practice because I'm becoming more familiar with it. I'm like, okay, you know, I need to have a little bit of a pinched in here. I need to pinch it in and curve it in up here. You know, it's just the more you do it, I guess, the more familiar you get with the shapes and what things are supposed to look like, and the faster things come together. So that should be encouraging to everyone. Okay, day two working on this project, and I think that this pattern is really good, but I want to give it one more shot to see if I can make it look a little bit closer to the original dress. So I think I'm going to trace this out and then redraw my seams. I guessed well enough as far as how much to divide out the first time, so I'm pretty confident there. Yeah, it's more just this whole area. That's the main thing, although there are little things that I want to tweak throughout. Okay, here we go, mock-up number two, and you know what? It's pretty darn good. I actually ironed it, so it actually looks good too. The puffiness in the back is gone. I think the back fits about perfectly. Straps are a little loose, but they're just pinned in place. I can adjust that. Oh, oh, I might even shave a tiny bit more from this edge right here, make that a little bit more of a drastic curve down. But the only main problem with this one is that it's slightly too tight in the bust, which you can see by how much it wants to split when I unzip it. But that's easy. I'm just going to add kind of a triangular wedge to the front edge. There's a little bit of a gap right here, which I almost forgot that I pinched out last time, so I'm just going to take a couple of little tiny pie wedges out. I'm actually really impressed with the fit. It's looking pretty good. I think that the alterations I made to my fan shape before I started really, really helped it out. I think I'm just going to make these adjustments to my pattern based off of this mock-up, and then I'm just going to get started. I don't think there's any reason to do a third mock-up. This is what it looks like after I took out those pie wedges. I also curved it in just slightly right here at this top edge. I added the wedge here. This will be a closed seam because I think I've decided I'm going to put a zipper in the back and not do a front closure. I used to hate zippers, but I've decided to give them another chance because I'm thinking that with the short-waisted issue fixed, and even more importantly, the short-waisted in the back issue, that might solve a lot of the complaint I had with zippers because I always hate the way they bunge up and form that hard ridge on your back, especially if you're sitting. So I've decided to give them another shot. Okay, something else I've decided to do I almost forgot. I am going to trace all of these pieces before I get started cutting out my actual fabric. I'm going to trace all these pieces and add a half of an inch seam allowance because I am getting a little bit tired of the whole, you know, tracing it and matching it up with pins. It's just so much faster, and especially since I'm not working with velvet this time and I can make this just quickly on the machine if I want to, that's what I'm going to do. I just want something simple. I'm kind of burnt out on complicated projects. Yay! Pattern! Okay, pattern, and this time I actually remembered to transfer all of my waist and bust line markings when I traced it over to fresh paper, so that will be handy if I ever do need to alter it. I'm going to use a modern pocket pattern, and then I was all ready to go and start cutting it out, and I realized that I should do the sleeve pattern because I don't have much fabric to work with and I need to make sure all of the pieces fit right before I start cutting things out. Okay, so this is the sleeve that I made for the blue lace jacket. This is the sleeve pattern that I made for the velvet bodice, but with this dress it has a little bit more historically accurate shape in that it curves a little bit further into the back of the shoulder, which means that the sleeve will need to have a slightly asymmetrical shape. So I don't really know, I'm going to have to just kind of make it up. I think I have a plan, but it's a very, very loose strategy. Ah, let's just try it out. Okay, this is how the sleeve is looking. The actual circumference of it is almost spot on. It could stand for a little bit more, but it almost matches up perfectly. The big problem though is that the peak of it is right here, and it should be right here, so I have to figure out how to probably just angle it in more. I think that would do it, but then I need to widen this whole thing out a little bit because I want it to have some extra ease. So yeah, let's try that. Okay, this one fits much, much better, at least as far as I can tell, so I'm just going to stitch it in and then try it on and see if I can actually wear it. Okay, so here it is. It's surprisingly good, especially in the shoulder and the back. I have plenty of forward and backwards mobility, however, it's a little tight under the arm. So I think that I just need to add some, splice some in to this portion of the pattern, and that should really be good. I don't think I need to do another mock-up of this. I'm just going to go for it. Yeah, it just needs a little bit more there. Okay, I'm getting a little bit frustrated with this. I think this one fits better, but it's kind of bubbled up. I had to pin it back a little bit. I'm trying to figure out how to widen it without raising it too much. I like the back of it better. I think it's even more flexible now. It's not terrible, and also I'm wearing something underneath it, which is kind of impeding movement. So it might be fine, but I don't really know. This pattern has a nearly perfect fit. I am super happy with it. Now, if you felt a bit lost while watching this, please do know that this is my fourth video on 18th century patterning, and the videos have begun to build on each other as I learn and become more familiar with the patterns and the shapes. So if you want to learn how to pattern 18th century yourself, the best advice I have to offer is raid your Christmas stash, or go buy a roll of cheap wrapping paper at the dollar store if you don't have any. You don't need fancy tools or a custom dress form. Just a few basic rulers and a pencil. For mock-ups, I get the best results using cotton canvas. At Joann's, canvas costs $10 a yard, and one yard should make two or three mock-ups. Just try it out. Practice. What do you have to lose? A few bucks on a Saturday afternoon? The more you experiment, the more you'll familiarize yourself with the shapes, and more importantly, with your shape. Now, this pattern is fairly historical, and could be made using entirely historical, original practice methods. Or, if like me, you're getting a little burnt out on hand stitching, it could be made using largely modern methods, which you will see in the next video. So subscribe to see the part two.