Getting dressed in a large 1860s ballgown! Victorian undergarments and eliptical crinoline cage.

So welcome to my getting dressed video for my 1865 ball gown and here I'm wearing my basic undergarments. So I have a chemise, corset, drawers, stockings and boots. The boots aren't quite correct for the era but they're all I have at the moment so they have to have to do for now. The next thing that I'm putting on here is the bum pad and these were often used in the bustle era to enhance bustles but they were also used in the 1860s to give a bit of extra support to the back of the hoop skirt and that's what I'm using mine here for now. This hoop skirt I made especially for this ball gown because I wanted a ball gown that looked very much like you see in the fashion plates, really big full skirts. So I had to make one for that. There's no patterns really available for anything of that size so I had to make my own which was quite a challenge. But this particular one is made by special boning which is cotton covered and each of the hoops are joined together by tapes which the bones themselves are then studded in place using special studs and I've also made this one with ties at the top at the front to keep it nice and closed and you can see that each of the hoops are joined together at the front using special metal clips so it keeps them nice and neatly and keeps the bones encased and stops them from poking out. Next here I have my petticoat and I've made this petticoat very lightweight because of the size of the skirt you really, for dancing especially, you need something that's very lightweight. An ordinary cotton could be used but it would add an awful lot of extra heaviness and weight and make it very difficult for dancing and this one is more than sufficient. As you can see I'm having a bit of a job trying to get it on myself in a very small space in the room. I have to sort of throw it over my head and spread it out over the back but this petticoat is made in a cotton voil which is a very cheap cotton but it's fairly strong and again lovely and lightweight and the ruffles at the bottom are made in a stiff cotton organdy which is ideal because it has a lot of body to it and a lot of strength and stiffness which creates a nice full hem and helps to hide the boning at the bottom of the hoops from showing through your skirt as well as creating a little bit of extra volume and also prettiness as well and you can see that each of my ruffles have got double pin tucks on them as well which also helps with the volume. As you can see it's rather, well it's a relatively big room but it looks extremely small especially when you're getting ready in such a big skirt. So next I have my ball gown skirt and this is made in a beautiful sort of a silk moray fabric and it's got a beautiful watered effect on it. It's actually, this particular fabric was made from a pair of very old vintage curtains and there was just enough fabric for me to be able to make the ball gown and the bodice as you'll see in a bit. So because it's so heavy weight it didn't need to have a lining. Usually I always line my skirts but this particular one didn't need it and with a petticoat obviously underneath as well it wasn't really necessary. So again trying to adjust my skirts here with very little space. A jump always helps because it helps to sort of make it sort of go out over the back if there's any of it caught up underneath. And on this skirt you can see a pretty lace ruffle which is matching the one on my ball gown bodice and it's done in a vintage style lace so it's slightly off white and it's very delicate pretty. Just a simple sort of scallop design on there and the sort of design was very common in the 1860s and skirts weren't always heavily decorated. Very often they were quite plain and next we have the ball gown bodice. As you can see it is a mixture of the same laces on the skirt but also just underneath you can see poking out some a genuine 18, well about circa 1860s lace bertha underneath as well and the two laces match perfectly and you can just see the front and the back there. And here I am arriving at the assembly rooms. I'm about to go in to have a portrait taken and it's such a beautiful beautiful hallway with the octagon sort of shape entrance hall there and here we are having a go at some of the dancing. This is a wonderful quadrille, can't remember the specific name of this one but it was really really good fun to dance and actually surprisingly easy to dance in such a large skirt. I thought it would be a lot lot more difficult, still a bit of a challenge to get used to initially but not as bad as I thought. There's a little close-up there and decided uh since the other room was empty that we were going to do a nice slow-mo video of twirling in my gown so that you can see how it moves and how it sort of swishes around and it's really really good fun to do that in these big skirts. I was actually quite pleased with the drape of the skirt and that the boning of the hoops were hidden well and that it sort of flowed quite nicely. I deliberately made the skirt a little shorter because I don't want to be tripping over it for dancing. I think if I wasn't doing as much dancing I'd probably have it a little bit longer at the sides and at the back. So if you enjoyed the video please like and subscribe and I'll leave you with a clip of how I updated the ball gown for a ball at a later date that I attended, adding on some extra trim and ribbons etc. So thanks again for watching, bye!