I can't believe it's only two weeks to go!

14 days to go!!!

It's amazing how time seems to move faster the closer you get to a deadline. I have been hard at work on Victoria's costumes over the last week and unfortunately have let the posts slip a little bit.

Since my last post, we have been in the news....

A brief interview with the Brecon and Radnor express was published last week and can be viewed here. The picture is of me posing with Victoria's completed ballgown. Believe it or not, despite the apparent size difference in the photograph, the dress does actually fit on me!

I have also been working on my demonstration for the festival. This will take place at 3:15pm on Wednesday 24th August at the Hotel Commodore. For anyone attending the festival, this will be a chance to come along and see the costumes in person. I will be demonstrating every layer of an 1840s lady's toilette, from the chemise and bloomers right through to the shoes and bonnets and there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and see the costumes up close.

For this purpose, I have spent the last week stitching a chemise to be worn underneath the corset with a neckline that mirrors those of the dresses so that it won't stick out like my other chemises have done on the dress form. This chemise was loosely modelled on an original chemise in the Met Museum and altered to match the dress patterns that I will be wearing in shape.

The original chemise - MET 1978.251.2 1840-59 Linen chemise

I have also made a chemisette, based on an original pattern, which if like a false blouse or "dicky" that fills in the neckline of the dresses for daytime wear.

Example of an 1850s chemisette - MET_1978.314.6_1850s chemisette

Like this chemisette, mine is made of muslin and ties around the waist underneath the dress. Instead of embroidery I have added a lace collar.

Finally, I have been experimenting with dressing Victoria's wig but I will save the results to share in another post. Back to the stitching just now as I have a silk bonnet to finish for Victoria to wear when out and about in town during the festival week.

All flounced out!

50 days to go...

Hooray! All of the structural undergarments are complete. To add to the corset and the corded petticoat, a second flounced petticoat adds the final touches to the silhouette.

The petticoat is constructed of a base layer, pleated into the waist, onto which long strips of fabric are gathered to create the three layers of flounces. The petticoat fastens with a tape passed through the waistband channel.

Gathering the first flounce onto the hem of the petticoat

The layered flounces of material help to hold out the skirts to create the bell-shaped silhouette of the late 1840s and early 1850s. Strictly speaking, flounced petticoats were more often seen later in the 1850s when they were worn over the cage crinolines to soften the outline and disguise the steel bones.

This cartoon appeared in Punch magazine in January 1857. The lady on the right is blowing into a tube to inflate her crinoline (inflatable petticoats were a genuine invention). Her skirt demonstrates the kind of flounces that could also be applied to petticoats - "stiff muslin petticoats flounced set out the dress" (Cunningham, p248)

Before this it was the custom to wear multiple single petticoats to support the skirts. According to C. Willett Cunningham, author of " Englishwomen's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century",

"It was usual to wear a number [of petticoats], depending on the season; the undermost was short and of some stiff material...Over this was worn one or more flannel petticoats, in winter, and above them a plain and above that an embroidered petticoat...The outermost petticoat, of cambric, was elaborately embroidered and trimmed and trimmed with embroidery, crochet or lace." (Cunningham, p165-166)

Indeed, some people claim that as many as twelve petticoats were being worn to support increasingly large skirts in the 1850s, prior to the invention of the cage crinoline. Not only this, but the petticoats would have been heavily starched to hold their shape and support the skirts of the dress.

Even at the time it was recognised that such a great deal of underclothing was heavy, hot, restrictive and unhygienic, not to mention the fact that all the layers could add inches to the waist! For the modern re-enactor it therefore makes sense to compromise a little to avoid too much discomfort when in costume. A flounced petticoat adds extra volume to the petticoats using less material and is therefore more cost effective and lighter to wear. Furthermore, the anachronism is only slight. Throughout the 1840s, flounces were a key feature of fashionable skirts. It is therefore not inconceivable that some women may have added flounces to their petticoats.

An 1840s fashion plate from the French magazine "Le Follet" show a skirt with three, tiered flounces like those on my petticoat (Image found here)

 The fact that is practically impossible to find a surviving example of such a petticoat from this period does not necessarily discredit this theory since so few petticoats survive at all, being as they were largely utilitarian and made of fabrics likely to be re-purposed when the garments were no longer fit to wear.

*References:
C. Willett Cunningham, Englishwomen's Clothing in the Nineteenth Century (Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1937, reprinted by Dover, 1990)

The first petticoat

53 days to go and the first petticoat is complete.

A total of 31 rows of cotton cord have been sewn into petticoat to stiffen the hem and create this shape. The petticoat will also be heavily starched to help it stand up under the dress. A deep, shaped waist-band helps to minimise bulk at the waist. Although this is not common in extant petticoats, I have seen some examples with a deep yoke and when wearing multiple layers this helps immensely to preserve the line of the figure created by the corset.

The skirt is cartridge pleated and hand-stitched to the waistband. Cartridge pleats are formed when evenly spaced gathering stitches are drawn up to pull the fabric into pleats like a concertina. The back of each pleat is then secured with a stitch through the waistband. At the back, the pleats stand away from the waistband three-dimensionally and this helps to give the pleats a little extra kick to make the petticoat stand away from the body.

Cartridge Pleats in progress

Over this petticoat, a second flounced petticoat will help to add softness to the silhouette and bulk out the skirts, before a final, lace-hemmed petticoat is added to smooth over all of the layers. By the early 1850s, women had to wear multiple petticoats to support the increasingly large skirts that were fashionable - sometimes as many as twelve. The invention of the cage-crinoline, as oppressive as it may appear to modern eyes, was therefore undoubtedly a relief to many women as it was certainly lighter, cooler, less-restrictive and more hygienic than the huge quantities of petticoats they were used to wearing.

Structural engineering

56 days to go and work continues on the corded petticoat.

So far 24 rows, totalling 48 metres of cording have been sewn into the hem of this petticoat. The 1/4" cotton cord is sandwiched between two layers of cotton and sewn tightly into parallel channels to create a ridged effect. These cords will give the petticoat structure to support the skirts of the dress. The cording will continue up the petticoat to just below hip level. The top will then be cartridge pleated onto a waistband to draw in the excess fabric and create the bell-shape that was fashionable in the 1840s and early 1850s.

One down, a dozen or so to go!

57 days to go and the corset is complete.

Front view an the mannequin

The finishing touches included binding the top and bottom of the corset, stitching the flossing (decorative stitches that help keep the boning in place) and neatening and finishing all of the edges inside the corset.

I used strips of blue linen cut on the bias (diagonally across the material to allow some stretch) to bind the edges of the corset. These strips were hand-stitched to the corset from the outside and then folded over and slip-stitched to the inside to cover and reinforce the raw edges.

Applying the linen binding to the edges of the corset

Then, once all of the loose edges had been carefully stitched down on the inside of the corset, it was time for the flossing. The term flossing refers to embroidery stitches used specifically on corsets that were designed to keep the bones in place and prevent them from moving around and poking through the fabric of the corset. As well as this practical function, they were also highly decorative and used to enhance the aesthetic appearance of corset, especially when worked in contrasting colours. For an excellent tutorial on how to create flossing stitches visit Sidney Eileen.com

An example of decorative flossing stitches on an original corset, 1893-97, Glasgow Museums, PP.2002.8.13_02

The flossing on my corset was worked using the same cotton floss as the other embroidery. The criss-crossed stitches cradle the end of each bone and extend up the sides to hold them firmly in their channels. These stitches are worked right through all the layers of the corset.

Flossing at the lower edge of the corset

And finally, fully laced with 7m of cotton lacing, the corset is ready to be worn. The next step in the project will now be to complete the petticoats. It is important to have all of the layers of underwear in place before starting the outer garments as Victorian clothes were very tight fitting. For gowns to be able to hug the figure and lie smoothly, very careful measurements should always be taken over the underwear to ensure a perfect fit.

A back view of the corset lacing

When home sewing becomes DIY

60 days to go and time to bone the corset.

In the nineteenth century, corsets could be boned with whalebone (actually the baleen, or teeth of the whale) or, thanks to advances in industrial technology, steel. Whalebone was a particular favourite as this natural material which has a consistency somewhere between hair and horn is light, elastic and flexible. Whalebone could be split into thin strips and still retain all of these features and, if softened in hot water, could be shaped to the form of the corset where it would remain set once dry and cold. However, the great demand for baleen meant that the numbers of these magnificent creatures dwindled as they were constantly hunted. The answer to the scarcity and rising price of whalebone was steel. By the mid century spring  steel had been invented, flexible enough to bend to the shape of the corset.*

An example of baleen on display in Colonial Williamsburg. Picture from The Two Nerdy History Girls. Click here to read their interesting short article on baleen.

This is the material used for corsetry today. Solid steel or spiral steel (tightly coiled and flattened wire) bones provide excellent support for garments such as corsets, but are light and flexible enough to shape to the body. Corsets are also still fastened with steel busks (wide, strong bones with hook and stud closures) and metal lacing eyelets, patented in 1829 and 1828 respectively.

The two halves of the busk are inserted between the corset and facing at the front edges. Spaces in the stitching allow the hooks to poke through the seam and an awl is used to pierce holes for the studs. And in a taste of what is to come, safety goggles are worn when sewing around the busk as sewing machine needles break and fly up in the air very easily if they accidentally hit the steel!

Front fastening buck inserted

 For the next stage even more DIY tools are required. Setting the lacing grommets in the back of the corset involves no sewing whatsoever but a fair amount of hammering. The grommets (or eyelets) come in two parts. The side with the long shaft is inserted through a hole pierced in the right position and the second side, resembling a washer is placed over this. A special tool is then used which, when hit with a hammer, forces the shaft to roll back over the washer to secure the eyelet in position.

An array of tools for setting the grommets

The two halves of an eyelet

The grommet setting tool in action

And a good whack with a hammer!

Finally the bones themselves can be inserted into the channels sewn earlier. I was using continuous spiral steel for this project, so once again raided the tool box for lethal looking items to try to cut the steel (not an easy job) and fix the end caps in position. With the bones cut to the tight length and the ends finished, these were then inserted into the channels ready or the top edges of the corset to be bound.

Scary wire and tools...and the safety goggles again because this stuff springs everywhere!

Close up of the spiral wire

And finally, the result. One corset ready to be finished tomorrow:

Front with busk

The back with eyelets

 * References

Norah Waugh, Corsets and Crinolines (Routledge/Theatre Art Books, Oxon, 1954).