all projects now safely stored

It started because I was tidying my Phantom of the Opera files- so many double ups which should free some space. But it reinvigorated my love of the natueral form era- well I was already working on interpretive historic dress anyway- but I decided to find an era appropriate drafting system and now I really want to make pdf files for All The Tools.

This is the back of the Aussie/World tour gowns. My favourite, no panniers of weirdness, an amazing bow and the waterfall drapery.
Can't help but feel this had some tought to connect it to Christines' only real self bought/chosen frock :)


I want to say US/Canadian due to the very full and deeply scalloped lace. This is the fullness I want at the front of my skirt, and this is the bask shape I made for my original, it's one of my favourite variations here. Oh, this is for the mirror bride- the masks are made from which ever Christine is playing that night where possible.
Erik is creepy, we always need to remember that!


The original gown. Actual photoshoot at Opera Garnier. The bodice hooks up thr front- very long basque. Seriously ove the bodice shape and soft skirt.


Mis 90s UK I think? long basque again. Soft skirt, again.


Canadian, Patti chohenour. Mainly just love her acting in this.

Colby Thomas. He looked like Princess Leia on stage for real. I just watched her thing, it's Leia. But again, very long basque. Full but soft skirt.


Canadian, 90s. ebecca Caine, love the long basque and heavy lace cover.

Differnt rear view, so you can see how amazing the World Tour version is. We see the back of Christine a lot in this scene.


here you can see how the original bodice hooks up the front :) Deep basque, very short sculptural pannier drapes-subtle, I do like them).

Other costumes are gittery (single sheen, some with possibly mylar, some with aurora borialis mylar, some with corded fabric, and the Aussie was a crepe/cord combo.
I am going for a mix of the above.

But yeah, the images from this show made a huge impact on me between the ages of 13-20 and so the natural form era is a bit passion.
I'm sure the historic patterns will not give me what I want in the shoulder and upper arm region- these are a little later into the 1880s for shoulders and sleeves.

But I need to scan more of my programs for the bodice details that inspired my first version :)

1876 tool update

Okay, so the body templates are very wrong! My scale isn’t too far off but the markings on it are not perfect. I will do an annotated run through. One problem is the book says to lay the front waist tool 1″ from the edge of the material. but the tool already has a 1″ mark (A). That is not the 1″ that it needs to be set from the edge. Not if the bust measures are to work.

Having tried this tool I know now that the miniature is really not a perfect scale of the full tool as it will appear. The dart and side seam rules are good so I have now made a single file of all the miniature tools.

Some of the markings are wrong. The vertical measures should all be identical distances ditto the perfectly horizontal. So I scaled to the dart rule and made sure the distance between the edge and the lower bust mark as 9″ and this now makes all the “standard” measures line up.

The science and geometry of dress

by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

 

  

So these all match, I started with all the mini tools on one file and scaled. everything that I know to be inches seem to match up.

I’ll update my earlier post with the new files 🙂

 

1876 basque

The science and geometry of dress

by Jackson, Louisa L., Mrs. [from old catalog]

Published 1876

So, the trouble with the system is the “bust” measure is a sort of not really measurable distance where the armhole (arm size) and the side seam end.  And then you take the back measure separately. Not a full measure all the way around. I used my padded form but still estimated where the side seams would sit. I think I need to tweak it a bit more. But other than my near universal shoulder/side of bust fitting issues I think the scale works.

If I look at the patterns taken from existing garments the arm hole is most definitely not as per the first pass of the tool. I need to get a bit courageous about trimming here! Also to adjust the super rigorous dart placement- the drafting tool is quite old fashioned in that it feels like it’s from the 1860s-very early 1870s. This is about the time there should be two side back seams that slope a little more gently. So I think the tool will work, it just won’t look like the diagrams but will look like the extant items.

The additional steps to make a basque though are brilliant. And it does show exactly why the cross dart sits where it does. This is where fabric naturally folds in at the waist with the basque (called skirts in this book.)

You can see how the fabric is super full in the armscye and above the bust. I’ll smooth the fabric over the stand and then compare to the tool to see what I would recommend in terms of using modern equipment.

The book is very unyielding in the  sens that the distance from CF and CB to first dart is specified. And the distance between darts also specified. The tops of the darts are also very much decided by the tool (while the height is adjustable the distance from centre front is not.

 

I do love the basque and how the darts are formed! If nothing else I am keeping the dart tool!

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I compared the diagrams to extant patterns and yes, I will need to do what these do: rotate  the armscye towards the centre front.

 

These are all from Patterns of Fashion.