18th century saree round gown

I've often used vintage sarees for my costuming projects, here's yet another one. I bought the saree earlier this year with this one and it's been sitting in the cupboard, waiting for the opportune sewing project to come along.

I decided to make an 18th century roundgown, mainly because the saree had a gorgeously embroidered pallu end and I wanted to make the most of it.

I used the round gown in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion as guidelines and used my anglaise bodice lining pattern as the bodice pattern for this gown too. I would have wanted to make another en fourreau gown, but due to the fact that I was working with a saree, I could not have cut the en fourreau back out of it. I opted for making the bodice and the hem separately and joining them in the end. I didn't really like that and still think that an en fourreau back would've looked better. Ah, well.

The fabric was annoying to work with, it's very drapey, soft and--I'm now convinced--part liquid. Also, the metal embroidery is fairly heavy and while that's nice on the finished gown, while sewing it added a level of difficulty.  I lined the bodice with cotton and bound all the edges with bias tape inside the bodice to give it a modicum of stability. The hem was scream-inducingly hard to pleat and level (due to fabric quality and that metal embroidery) and I actually ended up asking help from Sanna (Rococo Atelier ) and other friends in attaching the hem to the bodice before the Christmas ball in Suomenlinna where I first wore it.

I trimmed the gown with gold lace, which is probably not as common as white lace in extant gowns but I managed to find some examples browsing different museum databases.

After the Christmas ball I realised that I didn't have any good photos of the gown so today I decided to dress up and snapped a couple.