Talking Dress History with American Duchess

Hello folks!

A little shameless self-promotion here. In case you haven’t seen or heard (about) it yet, I recorded a podcast with Lauren and Abby of American Duchess at this year’s Costume College. They were kind enough to express an interest in my academic research on 18th century women’s clothing alteration and my related reproduction project this past spring and we ended up having a really fun time chatting about it!

Go ahead and have a listen, if you’re interested!

As a refresher, or if you haven’t seen them yet, here are links to the posts I made about the alteration reproduction project I undertook back in February/March:

Part 1: Project Intro and 1760s Version

Part 2: The Alteration Process

Part 3: 1780s Version Reveal + Thoughts and Conclusions

 

And I’ll be back soon with more sewing/costuming posts, I’ve got a whole slew lined up from Jane Austen Fest and Costume College!

‘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