Reproduction 1660s Peach Dress
Reproduction 1660s Peach Dress
Reproduction 1660s peach Cavalier style dress worn to Costume College 2017.
Bodice
Peach silk satin boned bodice with puffy sleeves laces up back. Sheer gold trim on neckline with tail at end held in place with
artificial pearls. Handsewn eyelets. Busk in front. Was never able to get a straight front look because busk over stomache made bodice flare out over stomache in person (looks correct on dressform).
Pattern: Nehelenia NP800 1660 Baroque Dress
Skirt
Peach silk satin skirt with narrow waistband, pleats over bum roll, and closes with hooks and eyes.
Petticoat
White cotton petticoat ties at side.
Shift
White cotton shift gathered to yoke has 3/4 sleeves that gather near sleeve hem leaving ruffle.
Some Process Entries From Blog
[July 23, 2017] Cavalier Mistakes Were Made I cut out the skirts panel and thought, huh, there's more fabric leftover than I thought. Then I realized I had cut out finished lengths without any hem or seam allowance. I was hoping that make a 1/4" waistband seam would help, but still ended up 2" short without hemming. I may piece in a band at the bottom which won't look quite right.
Finally finished up the next bodice with busk in front. Front is now flatter, but there are wrinkles in the fashion fabric and the front neckline gapes about the 3/4" both sides which is how much I enlarged the front. Also, still having problems with boobs being squished down inside the bodice instead of pushing up to the top. I'm wondering if the Nehelenia pattern is not quite right. Instead of having different patterns for the boned and fashion layers like in "The Seventeenth-Century Women's Dress Patterns", the fashion fabric layout is used for both. Looking at fashion plates, the neckline looks like it should be lower than how mine turned out, too.
I need a chemise/shift, too. So, instead of finishing the dress this weekend, I still have some things to do. I'm also very disappointed that my first silk satin dress is not anywhere as fabulous as I'd imagined especially after all the time I've spent on it.
On the plus side, keeping the front of the skirt flat and making small pleats with a small waistband and closure in the back did work. Since I had two lengths of fabric, I had the seams on the sides. Making the front flat pushed the seams back so they would be too far back for pocket slits. My guess is that skirts during that time were made with three lengths of fabric, with the front piece being where the pocket slits would be and the back seam for the back closure.
[July 20, 2017] Peach Blush Only managed to get a few pieces together. Boning layer, rayon/linen layer, and silk layer sandwiches for each piece.So far, less funky wrinkle problems on the seams. We'll see if that's true for the larger curve. The color of the fabric is not as dark as in the photo.
[July 18, 2017] Gala Gown Reboot Since I had to start over, here is my gala gown:
I'm going to try boning all except the center pieces separately.
[July 17, 2017] Cavalier Dress Fail
I actually made a muslin and then made some alterations to the paper pattern and made a wearable bodice mockup this weekend. I finished the waistband to the skirt and tried the whole thing on and it didn't fit right in so many ways. I was kind of demoralized after so much work. I ran some errands, took a late nap, and I watched Game of Thrones.
I may undo the 1" shortening and make the bust/top 1.66" wider. The Nehelenia 1660s pattern looks like it has a smaller bust to waist ratio. My shortened size 40 ended up with a 35" bust and 31" waist closed.
Completed: 2017
Tags: #1660s #dress #Cavalier