Today I have a pretty short post for you to show you my new dress, inspired by the fashion of 1837. I’m not the biggest fan of the 1830s because of the ridicoulus sleeves, but sometimes I have a short moment of enough craziness to actually make funny sleeves.
This dress was inspired by the beautiful christmas dress from romantic history. I fell in love with the fabric and the beautiful design of the bodice. It suits her perfectly and I wanted a similar dress and so I went fabric shopping…
I visited my two favourite fabric stores but I didn’t find anything I liked for this dress so I went home with fabric for my Versailles 2024 dress instead and an idea in mind. I remembered that I bought some bed linen in croatia a few years ago that I wanted to use for an empire dress. But I never used it and when I pulled it out of my fabric boxes I was super excited. I loved the dark blue and the little tree print. (My friends call it ‚The Tree of Mordor-Dress“)
Well, the fabric was allowed to jump into the washing machine and then the cutting began. And it was hard work! The grain of the fabric was warped. A LOT. And I was not able to straighten it perfectly because then the print would have been crooked. So I had to work my way around it.
And I think the dress came out quite nice.
The bodice pattern was based on my personal basic pattern which I also used for this dress. I shortened the waist, widened the neckline and also made it deeper and overcut the shoulders a little bit. I also made the armhole a bit wider for more comfort. The rest was draped on my mannequin and myself and I used up almost all of my fabric.
I wore the dress last year at castle Halbturn in lower austria. I visited the castle mainly to see the Empress Elisabeth exhibition but I knew I could make some pictues there.
I wore:
– long sleeved chemise
– modern white tights because it was super cold
– 1860s corset (because nobody will see a difference if I wear an 1830s or 60s corset)
– corded petticoat
– extra petticoat
– the dress itself
– a fichu from a theatre sale
– antique brooch
– antique cross
– American Duchess – Elizas in brown
