‘1 Nightgown new made’: A Practical Investigation of Eighteenth-Century Clothing Alteration PART 3 (of 3)

This is the third and final post in my small series chronicling an “experimental archaeology” project of mine about 18th century alteration practices by first making then altering a 1760s style gown to a 1780s style gown drawing upon research from my PhD thesis on the topic. If you’re just joining and would like to start from the beginning you can click for Part 1 and Part 2.

This reveal has ended up being a tease for some of you since it took some time for me to get pictures that I was really happy with. I hope it won’t be too anti-climactic for you! For the first photoshoot of the 1780s dress I ended up being unhappy with my styling of the gown – hair, ruffles, ribbon colours. It took time to schedule a re-shoot, which Taylor of Dames a la Mode was very gracious to do for me (she took the styled photos of the 1760s gown and the first round of the 1780s dress – she has a lot of patience with me, for which I am very grateful!).

And now, without further ado, I present to you the altered gown:

Phase 3: 1780s dress

Plain Photos

The first set of photos are just the gown mostly alone but with the proper underpinnings for the 1780s, mainly a split false rump in addition to the stays, rather than the pocket hoops worn for the 1760s iteration.

With the skirt left un-tied at the back:

‘1 Nightgown new made’: A Practical Investigation of Eighteenth-Century Clothing Alteration PART 2 (of 3)

This is the second of three posts on a recent “alteration reproduction” project I completed for exhibition at this year’s CSA Symposium in Williamsburg back in March. If you’re just joining, you can check-out Part 1 here to see what this is all about!

For quick reference, this is the gown I altered:

‘1 Nightgown new made’: A Practical Investigation of Eighteenth-Century Clothing Alteration PART 1 (of 3)

This post is a little something different from my usual and is actually rather more like an old project of mine you can check out here.

This is an “experimental archaeology” project I did to present at the Costume Society of America symposium that was held this March in Williamsburg.

The project consists of historically accurately reproducing a mid-18th century nightgown (fitted back style) and then altering that same gown to c.1780.

Why do this you may ask? Well, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before but I wrote a PhD thesis a few years ago all about the alteration and re-use of 18th century women’s garments. I’ve been itching to do a related reproduction project from that research for a while now and the CSA symposium finally gave me the chance I’d been waiting for!

Here’s a couple of snap shots of the finished exhibit, entitled:

‘1 Nightgown new made’: A Practical Investigation of Eighteenth-Century Clothing Alteration