The Courtois dress: Finished and photographed!

As you might remember, I finished the Courtois dress sometime in July, but because I've been busy and because we've had about the hottest summer in ages, I haven't got around photographing the dress and writing a post about it. Today, however, my friend had time to join me in a nearby park to help me photo my first finished late Victorian, natural form project.

The dress is based on a portrait by a French painter Gustave Courtois; in 1880 he painted Anne-Marie Dagnan, his father's cousin and the fiancée of his good friend. I fell in love with her dress and even though I had never dabbled with Victorian fashions before, I wanted to give it a try.

I took the dress pattern from The Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume I by Frances Grimble. I modified the bodice fronts to match the portrait dress and took inspiration for the front closures from this extant dress. Also, I'm indebted to many of my readers for giving me advice and encouragement during the project; one of my friends even took the trouble to book a study appointment in the costume museum in Bath and photograph a dress from the same era for me! How nice is that?!

Under the dress I'm wearing my late Victorian corset (the pattern of which I took from Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines), chemise and a petticoat. I think I might want to make a corset cover, a balayeuse for the train and possibly some natural form supportive garments for the skirts that were so expertly researched and produced by Festive Attyre.

That's all, really. I'm reasonably pleased with the ensemble, though there are things I'm still going to tweak. Also, there's the evening bodice to make!

Pictures? A word of warning, there are loads. A plethora, if you will. Not for the fainthearted :)

All the photos here by Suvi Saraste.

Practicing my regal wave. Apparently balconies make me feel very queenly.

A gentle breeze caressing my cheeks...

Graffitis, very interesting, my dears.

On the pier

The building with the tall chimneys is the local university, my current place of employment. It used to be a cotton mill from the 1850s to the 1950s.

A bit of unladylike galloping

So windy!

What have I been up to?

I feel like I've been very industrious, having finished the Irish dance dress and the Courtois portrait dress. I don't start work until the beginning of August and my mad travel-every-week June and the folk music festival bit of the July are done, so I have plenty of time to just hang around, enjoy the new home and sew.
I still need to get some proper photos taken of the Courtois dress, but it is finished. The next thing is to make an evening bodice for the skirts and I did find a lovely period photo of a beautiful lady in a ball gown that I'd like to try and reproduce.

I'd like to try and make an evening bodice like this. I seem to remember I found this photo through a French blog. If anyone knows the source, let me know and I'll add it here!

With the Victorian interlude finished, I've returned to the 18th century. I'm preparing for an event in early August, the 18th century market in Isokyrö, which is a village nearby. I went there last year for one day, but this year I'm planning to stay the whole weekend. I'm participating in setting up a market booth with some costumer and re-enactor friends, selling all sorts of fripperies and pretty things an 18th century lady would like to have. There's also going to be a big battle re-enactment commemorating the battle of Napue fought 300 years ago.

So, to prepare I've been knitting mitts and weaving garters. I'm also sewing a new, plainer robe à l'Anglaise because I realised that all my 18th century clothes - apart from the black swallow tail jacket - are too fine to be worn in a market environment. Again, as I'm not a re-enactor, I don't feel the need to follow the time period very strictly, so my new gown is your typical, generic anglaise which can be dressed up or down with different accessories.

The anglaise is coming together nicely; I'm currently battling with the sleeve placement and the shoulder straps but once I get that done, I only have the self-fabric trims to make and attach and that's it. I have a lot of the fabric, so I might make a petticoat to go with the gown, but it works with my red petticoat too.

New anglaise on the left, I'm using the stripy one as reference for the measurements. I also trimmed my hat :)

Civilised garters and some ribbon I've made. Must make more of these :)

The Courtois dress - The End Is Nigh

Despite the house move in late May I've managed to sew steadily though I feel like I've had a mad case of the sewing ADD having the dance dress, the Courtois dress, the 18th century riding habit on the sewing table all at the same time.

I realised that I haven't really done anything for the Courtois dress for a long time, and when I finally found ribbon for it when I was in Helsinki a couple of weeks past, I dug out the skirts and the bodice.
I've since attached the narrow ribbon on the skirts to cover the upper edges of the pleated ruffles on both the skirts. I also changed the red ribbon I had used temporarily to gather the centre front of the overskirt to a more suitable blue. I still want to attach some wide ribbon loops or rosettes on the sides or on the back of the overskirt, like on  some fashion plates I've seen.

I have ordered lace for the dress and once it comes I'll be able to really finish this project. I'm hoping to take the dress out and have some nice pictures taken as there are several 1870s and 1880s houses and locations in my home town. So apart from this one pic, no more photos until it's entirely finished!

I'm thinking I'd like to add those ribbon loops/rosettes just below where the bodice tail ends.

Courtois dress: bodice construction, part III

Here we go again, it's Courtois project time. I've been working on the bodice, little bits and pieces every day and so far I have:
-sewn in the bone casings and put in bones on each seam and the front darts of the jacket
-determined the method for making the front of the jacket to look like the original portrait; I'm sure there are many different ways to do this, I chose to copy and apply the fastenings used in this extant gown.
-faced the front and side piece hem of the jacket and
-turned in and stiched the back piece and pleat hems
-sewn on the waistband

I still have to
-sew hooks and eyes on centre front edges
-finish the centre front panel (the back of the panel, to be more precise)
-sew that panel on the jacket and sew hooks and possibly yarn loops to attach it
-set in the shirred pieces on the neckline and make a small collar (onto which I can then baste the lace)
-make the sleeves
-trim the overskirt with a pleated fringe and ribbon loops

Here are some photos I took this evening. I think I might have laced the corset a bit tighter than before, since the jacket suddenly has odd fit issues on the side back waist.

Here you can really see the beautiful violet undertones of the fabric

Ok, so it looks like I have less waist definition when I wear a corset than when I don't. Odd. Or it might just be the jacket. There is some strange fit issue on (my) left side, towards the back that I can't really figure out, mostly because I can't reach back wearing the whole get-up and fix it myself.

It's weird, when I wear the corset, I feel very short-necked, because the corset pushes stuff upwards (and down). I feel that I have to make more of an effort to keep my posture good and my shoulders back and down than without the corset. Apparently it doesn't show on the outside.

The front panel. I chose to make it with smocking because I like sewing smocking and it gives a very similar look as in the portrait. I sewed in piping around all the edges, to control the strechiness of the smocked piece.

Courtois dress: bodice construction, part II

I decided to fiddle with the Courtois dress bodice again. I've sewn the pieces together and also the darts, and now I wanted to see how the bodice looks with the skirts. Also, I needed to mark the waistline on the bodice to determine the placement of the bones and the waistband that go on the inside of the bodice. I'm still undecided about how exactly to construct the centre front, with all the concealed fastenings, the shirred front and the neckline issues. The most recent idea I have would be to cut  and fold down the centre front pieces to where the shirred front panel is attached to the centre front pieces and make a separate piece that goes under the shirred piece and has centre front closure and also reaches up to the shoulder seams and acts as a base for the gathered pieces coming down from the shoulders. I swear it's not as complicated and unclear as it sounds.

It looks like the gathered pieces around the neckline and the shirred front panel are sort of inserted under the front piece fabric, so to achieve this I should do what I described above. Also, I think it would look neater than just slapping the panel and the pieces on the existing front pieces and stitching them down.

Here are some pictures I took today. I think I should point out that the fabric is not actually grey, but lovely smoky blue/violet. It's very difficult to photograph :)

My bodice in its current state. The neckline is not final and the centre front is only pinned.

I like the curvaceous shape :)

The bodice length is another problem I'm wrestling with. Here I've folded the bodice hem shorter, it follows the lower edge of the corset.

Of course, as it is only pinned and nothing is cut off, it looks a bit stubby and ungainly, and pokes out in a funny way. I can't decide whether to cut the bodice hem like this...

...or to leave as it is and just turn in the seam allowances. I'm just worried that if I leave the bodice front long like this it will obviously wrinkle and look ugly when I sit, because the centre front point extends 9 cm past the lower edge of the corset. I like the balanced look and curve of the hem here but it only looks like this when I'm standing. And if and when I put in bones in the centre front, won't it only be worse?  Any opinions and suggestions are most welcome!

Courtois dress: bodice construction

I haven't yet finished the overskirt but I decided to make a start on the bodice anyway. I want to be sure of exactly how much fabric I have for the trimmings after the bodice is finished.

The bodice pattern came from Fashions of the Gilded Age I by Frances Grimble, page 391. I made a mock-up of the pattern and so far it looks good. I still need to try it on with the corset and the skirts to adjust the darts at the front, but the back seems to be fitting nicely. A wonder really, because usually I always need to shorten the back on ready-made patterns.

However, there are some things I'm not quite sure about with the pattern. If and when the bodice is flatlined, what would be the neatest and non-fraying/non-ripping way to sew the side back seams? The pattern description (Harper's Bazaar, May 1880) states that the bodice has a postilion back, which evidently means that the back piece has a tail which is pleated from both edges.

This is my bodice and overskirt pattern. Of course I need to modify the neckline, add the shirred piece in front, and shorten the sleeves but the shape and style are close to the dress in the painting.

The bodice pieces, before I enlarged them; I left out the strange skirt piece, because I don't really want to have it and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how a piece like that would fit in with these pieces.

Back piece. The horizontally wide bit is pleated so that the edge which has the small number 9 is in line with the side back edge (running down from the armscye to the hem. To be able to pleat and then sew in the side piece I have to cut horizontally (or at an angle) in to the seam allowance in the corner between number 8 and x.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like this. The pins are holding the pleats in place.

The pleats

I'm worried that it will not look neat and that it will rip when I wear the actual bodice.

The seams are just basted here. The pleats are on right and you can see the back piece seam in 2 parts (not very clear, sorry!).

A bit better picture, I hope

My question is, how to do it neatly? How to sew the pleated back piece to the side piece, when the back piece side back edge is and has to be in two parts?

The sewing instructions for this gown provided by the Harper's Bazaar are vague, to say the least:

"For the basque cut of foulard and lining two pieces each from the front, side piece, skirt piece, back upper sleeve and under sleeve. Join all the parts according to the corresponding figures. Furnish the basque with buttons and buttonholes. Trim as illustrated. "

A lot more is said about how to sew the overskirt and about the fabric choices and trimmings than about the bodice. As said, I omitted the skirt piece, but I don't think it makes a difference when my sewing conundrum is considered. I suppose Victorian seamstresses knew exactly how to sew a neat postilion back bodice but I would really need a little help.