sheer fluffy gowns

[pinkdiamond]

I have been on a pinterest-go-round but also while doing so found others who had liked some really old auctions and museum pages I had way back when, so I’m going to do a post about the inspiration for my next historic project 🙂

I was trying very hard to find the perfect gown, or even the perfect gown examples but there are so many. Perhaps I’ll have enough lace and net to make them all. That would be amazing.

One of my very first pricey book purchases way back when was The Paris Collection,

See the doll in the middle? Sigh. I love this jacket over flounced skirt combination. I need to update my historic pages section but this basic style definitely influenced my black and white day dress.

This is early 1870s, but this jacket and flounced skirt combo is seen in both art and extant items.

Afternoon dress, Metropolitan museum

Date:ca. 1871

Culture:European

Medium:cotton

Credit Line:Gift of Lee Simonson, 1938

Accession Number:C.I.38.23.247a–d

I would like to make my cotton net really pop, so I am looking to use some blue sheer sateen and around 26m (29 yards-ish) of wide rayon lace. It’s about 2 1/2″ wide which really pushes the balance of potential stripes into closer to the mid-late 1870s.

My sincerest apologies. This is from an auction, my files attribute them to Saturday, ‎14 ‎February ‎2009, ‏‎12:35:48 PM, so that may be the date of the auction. The naming practice is familiar but I just can’t remember and my old bookmarks seem to have not made their way to my new browsers.

However this is a perfect example of tone on tone with different textures that was a very big deal of the 1870s. It also includes the use of horizontal lines on the sleeves and gown I adore.

I do however keep coming back to an auction from ebay that was just so beautiful. At the time I had much difficulty in terms of being able to purchase from US ebay that it never even crossed my mind to contemplate putting in a bid! However this gown I believe would work with my heavier net and heavier lace.

 

I saved these in 2006, so this gown has been just there in the back of my mind for a decade! I have never found the perfect lace, but I do hope to be able to do justice to this regardless.

Of note is the mix of vertical lines in the bodice and sleeves, and the horizontal elements to the skirt.

Evening dress (Metropolitan Museum)

Date:ca. 1872

Culture:American

Medium:cotton

Credit Line:Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Amelia Beard Hollenback, 1966

Accession Number:2009.300.3290

Dress (Metropolitan Museum)

Date:1870s

Culture:American

Medium:cotton

Credit Line:Gift of Richard Martin, 1993

Accession Number:1993.35.2a–c

Again, lace is used to create linear interest. The satin appears to have originally been pink.

This era did however also have some Medieval/Renaissance revival going on and it even affected sheer gowns with sleeves.

Dress (V&A museum)

Place of origin: Great Britain (made)

Date: ca. 1868 (made)

Artist/Maker: Unknown

Materials and Techniques: Linen lawn, trimmed with silk-satin ribbon overlaid with bobbin lace

Credit Line: Given by Miss Ada B. Cooper

Museum number: T.13-1943

Gallery location: In Storage

Note the blue beneath the lace! This feature is in the doll dress and so I am very keen to use this element in my own. I had intended to use my sheer sateen as a princess line petticoat but am seriously thinking that it would be very effective as a base for the lace.

This means I do need to think carefully about the foundation garments but I think Tissot possibly has a solution that would look as striking on this project as it does in his artwork.

  

Three paintings of the same gown. Two of Kathleen Newton (both on WikiCommons) and a genre portrait at the Tate. This is the same kind of jacket as seen at the top of this post.

A similar arrangement can be seen on this princess line gown. Both dresses have solid white sleeveless foundation garments. These appear to be full length petticoats and they sit very low indeed in the back. I am not sure I can achieve such a low back, though there does appear to be a of illusion going on- there is a lacy detail that could be a corset cover on the right.

And then, thinking of stripes and princess lines I can’t help but want to then make a sheer version of at least two fashion plates from Harper’s Bazar!

1875 (23 October) and 1876 (19 August)

I can just see both of these translating to sheer gowns so easily. And it may be the nudge needed to finally actually make the reference gown for Mina as well as Mina 🙂

Comments

[love3angle.livejournal.com]

Oh I LOVE these sheer gowns, and the fluffy Tissot gowns! I've started a ruffly Tissot gown, just haven't gotten very far on it... maybe halfway up the skirt, haha!

[pinkdiamond.livejournal.com]

Obsessed by Tissot and Cranach since the 90s and it's nice to finally be working on both! Oh yes. I have Plans for a specific Cranach. And a specific Cleves that looks like a Cranach :)

It's summer here so I'd love to get to work asap on the fluffiness, so if you do start back up on the ruffles please share :) It just inspires me to get off the pc and back to making!

[love3angle.livejournal.com]

HAHA, I'm starting to obsess on a new Cranach, too! And a Swabian.

[clothsprogs.livejournal.com]

I have that book (oh the stripes and use of self-fabric trim for decoration), and the sheer white dress with the blue trim made me think of you the first time I skimmed through the pages.

I love the way that they faked the short underleeve with the trim showing through the long outer sleeve.

Now, if I could only remember where I put the book, I'd have another leaf through for dolls sress inspiration instead of trying to get on with unfinished projects.

Teddy

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

A very frothy one to add to your inspiration. :-) I posted it last month on my blog.

[pinkdiamond.livejournal.com]

That is a nice example of what I could do with the blue.

Hmm.

Yeah, I missed a whole lot of auction files in the last few years. I can't really do much a day atm :/ So feel like playing catch up on everything.