Corset is done, now what to put over it?

So I finished the Victorian corset:

However it looks much better on the mannequin than it does on me. It's a pity corsets are relatively expensive to make - boning, eyelets, hook and eye tape/busk etc etc - as I'd really like to make an early Edwardian one like this lovely example by The Laced Angel:

Edwardian corset by The Laced Angel

But that will have to come another time. For now, I need to decide what I will make now, ideally to go over the Victorian corset. As I said in my last post, I have about ten fabric/pattern marriages  to decide with, and I'd say at least half of them require a decent corset. Here goes:

1. Check cotton 1860s day dress

Ever since I saw Koshka's and Lauren's 1860s day dresses, I've always wanted to make one. Now that I have a Victorian corset that isn't munted, maybe I can. Anyway here was my inspiration:

Koshka from The Fashionable Past's 1863 day dress

Lauren from American Duchess' 1860s day dress

The fabric I'll be using is a cream with brown check cotton that I scored for cheap recently. For the pattern, although I'm sure I'll be heavily altering it, will be Butterick 5831.

2. A (rather inauthentic, but who cares) early Victorian gown

I immediately fell in love with Butterick pattern 5832 when it came out, and bought it as soon as it hit New Zealand shores.

It's kind-of Victorian, kind-of not, reminded me somewhat of the costumes in The Young Victoria, and something that I could easily get my hands on without paying ridiculous international shipping fees. It looks kind of like this dress c.1840 that I found on Pinterest:

I'm going to make it out of these delish mauve curtains I found, with trimmings of a purple-shot-with-green taffeta.

3. Epic lavish Edwardian gown with 100-year-old brooch

So my lovely Better Half brought me back a beautiful 100-year-old brooch originally from Bulgaria when he was in Europe last year, and I knew I had to make a dress to go with it.

I've been putting the project off so far because I wanted to make sure I had the time and resource to do it properly. I imagined doing something Downton Abbey-esque, kind of like these:

c. 1909

c.1910

c.1910

 c.1912

c.1900-1909

c.1907-1910

c.1908-1911

c.1912-1915

And of course inspiration wouldn't be complete without the costumes from Downton Abbey themselves:

Cora

Cora again

...and Cora again, although definitely not this frou-frou



Wish I could've found a better photo but - The Dowager Countess

Mrs Hughes

See what I mean about incorporating the brooch? Now, Edwardian patterns of this sort of design are hard to find, but I managed to find something similar at Past Patterns - a c.1912 ladies' gown that I'm going to have a bit of a play with. I have a lush deep chocolate brown velvet that I think fits the look I'm going for, and some silky cream gauzy stuff to embellish it with. But there'll be lots of other bits and bobs I'm sure.

4. 1920s day dress with velvet awesomness

So with season three of Downton Abbey came the obsession with the 1920s. I bought this 1920s pattern from Past Patterns because it was awesome -  Ladies' Dress with Separate Shirt Waist - and incidentally also found a fashion plate of the exact same dress (the green one in the middle):

Yums.

It's going to made out of a royal blue geometric-patterned fabric for the main part, with turquoise velvet for the collar and sash.

As this is a long enough post already I'm going to leave the others for another day! And hopefully by then I would have figured out how to do my poll!





Options, options...

So to keep myself occupied post-wedding-dress, I pulled out all of my fabric for ideas and inspiration.

 

 

And actually that's not even all of it. That's just the large pieces. Out of all that and my pattern stash, I came up with about ten pattern/fabric marriages that would result in delicious outfits. I want to somehow put them here on the blog and get you folks to vote for which one you think I should start with, but I've only got to far as finding the polling tool (polldaddy.com) - but not how to embed it in a blogspot site...that will have to be figured out another day. (Unless anybody can help me?)

 

One project I knew I wanted to do straight away though was another Victorian Corset. I made one in 2007:

 

 

 

But that has since been used in a couple of historically-set stage plays and gotten completely munted. So I thought I'd make another, and make it even better this time.

 

I gathered together some better quality boning, hook and eye tape, and some yummy trimmings:

 

 

 

And restlessness from two days in bed with a cold earlier this week made me rather productive and in about 24 hours I've already got this far:

 

 

 

Next post I'll show you my other projects set for the near future and hopefully get you dudes to tell me which one you'd like me to do first!

 

 

 

 

 

Operation Epic Bridal Gown: Complete

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, a pretty damn awesome couple, Mr and Mrs Gumbley.

The wedding was incredible. At the ceremony I think I was possibly almost as nervous as the bride herself, waiting for her to come down the aisle, desperately hoping that the dress was as perfect as planned and there were no wardrobe malfunctions. I'm glad to say there weren't! And as she passed down the aisle, I was literally trembling with excitement. She looked absolutely GORGEOUS. I was so proud to have been a part of such an important aspect of her special day, and to make her dream dress come true.

So firstly, yes, it's blue!! She knew exactly what she wanted when she first came to me, which made the whole production extremely easy. She showed me some photos she'd googled, and it soon became apparent she wanted something epicly Victorian-inspired. At which point I got immediately excited!

So we looked up some patterns we could use, and settled on two from Truly Victorian - TV170 for the petticoat, and TV361 for the bustle; and one I had in my stash - Simplicity 5457 - for the apron. The overskirt is just a simple gathered skirt I took from another in my stash - Simplicity 4092. The corset was made by a professional corset-maker in Christchurch - Abbey at Forge Fashion, but it didn't quite turn out the way Rebecca initially wanted it so we had to tweak it a bit.

There is SO much to this dress, and before I handed it over, I documented every single layer, hook, and trick so I could show you all.

First up, we have the black cotton underskirt.

Underskirt front view

It is gathered at the back for fullness.



Underskirt back view

It has two layers of ruffles to help fill out the skirt, and five pleated tucks all the way around to help with stiffness, helping the skirt not just flop.

Close-up of pleated tucks

Next comes the overskirt, which has a bustle-pad and the apron attached. The main fabric of the dress is a deep cobalt-blue de-lustered satin. It was beautiful to work with.

Underskirt with attached apron

The skirt itself closes with hooks and the back of the apron fastens over the top with domes.

Overskirt fastenings

The bustle-pad is sewn in place on one side:



And attaches with hooks and eyes on the other.

 Bustle-pad fastenings

This makes a perfect foundation for the bustle.

Overskirt with bustle-pad and apron

The bustle has hooks attached which simply hook over the back of the skirt/apron combination.

Bustle attachment

The fashioning of the bustle comes later; for now it looks like this:

Un-fashioned bustle

The last thing to go on is the corset. This covers all the fastenings and the bustle hooks and helps hold it all into place.



















Now the bustle gets hooked into place. There is a a little ring attached to the back of the corset:

To which a hook on the bustle can be attached, so it looks like this:



The bustle can also be hooked up so it stays off the ground. There are little rings attached to the base of the bustle-pad, to which hooks on the inside of the train can be fastened.

It ends up looking like this. (Which personally is my favourite look!)

One last requirement Rebecca had was that the skirt itself could also be hooked up to free up her legs so her and Luke could perform a dance that they had arranged. (Which was also EPIC, by the way).

So, there were little rings attached to the inside of each side of the corset:

And hooks on the inside of the overskirt and the outside of the petticoat:

So they too could also be hooked up and out of the way.

Resulting in a much easier ensemble to dance in, and a freaking awesome visual if you ask me:

Here it is in action:

Photo courtesy of Penny Pender

Lastly, here is a view of the front of the dress in all it's full glory, just for good measure.

And lastly lastly, a pic of me with my bride and bridesmaids. The bridesmaids' dresses are made of royal blue satin with cream lace overlaid over it. The girls picked their own patterns - Simplicity 2362 and Burda 7983, but I removed the rouching on both, as the lace already provided enough detail.

I'm not too happy with how the bodice of my own dress turned out, however - it really needed some interfacing. But I learnt from that and will know for next time...

So there you have it, folks! The much awaited Epic Bridal Gown. I am VERY stoked with it. :)