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.

I may have been a bit bad...

I bought two vintage sarees. Considering that I haven't been exactly rolling in money so far this year and meeting the expenses each month is a bit of a balancing act, maybe buying supplies to cater for my costuming habit is not entirely sensible. But I did do the math first and being vintage they were cheap, not to mention gorgeous. AND I already know exactly what I want to make out of them.

Pictures? Yes, I thought so too :)

I really like the colour and the embroideries! The colour is actually a bit deeper, raspberry red.

There's metallic and colour embroidery, pearls and the saree is liberally sprinkled with gold sequins

This is going to be my new Regency ball gown

The second saree is creamy white and almost butter cream colour in places. This is the gorgeously embroidered pallu end of the saree.

The embroidery is done in metal bullion and there's a row of rhinestones on the pallu edge

This is going to be ca. 1780 round gown. The pallu end will be the skirt front piece.