In Which I Venture into the 18th Century

The Partner in Crime and I have stated a little Meetup group to further our costuming adventures, so hopefully there will be more excuses for me to make and wear things and consequently more reasons to update the blog take pictures.  We're trying to do one event every month.  We shall see.

May was Steampunk World's Fair, June is a little vintage themed tea, and July is Bastille Day at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

Steampunk and various vintage periods are well within my wheelhouse.  I can cobble that stuff together pretty easily and I've sewn for those periods before.  The 18th century is a whole new beast.

I have none of the undergarments and nothing even remotely suitable to wear and I'm unlikely to pick up anything appropriate at the Goodwill.

Luckily it is pretty popular with reenactors, so I can research fairly easily and I patterns are available and the event isn't really meant to be historically accurate, so I'm not feeling overwhelmed on that end.

I'm going to attempt something working-class for this event. 

A word about accuracy:  I'm not concerned about historical accuracy in my costuming.  I enjoy the research and I can probably tell you more than the average person about what people really wore at any given time in history, but I also know that period appropriate fabrics are expensive and period techniques (like hand sewing) can be time consuming.  I'm far more interested in making something that is evocative of the period at a cost that is reasonable to me in the 21st century.  

Planning

American Duchess just released some patterns for Simplicity that I'm going to use as a starting point for my undergarments and a little jacket.  I'm planning to make the petticoat without a pattern. (Pray for me).

 


They're Outlander themed, which would be a bit earlier than the period I'm shooting for, but the base patterns should be pretty good for what I'm planning: A walking length skirt and Pierrot jacket.  I'll need to make some alterations, but it's a good start.

I'm hoping the end result will be something like this from the Kyoto Costume Institute:

Vive la revolution!

As intimidated as I am of this project I've really been wanting to do something from this period for a while and now I finally have an excuse.  And I have an excuse to buy these gorgeous shoes that I've been lusting after for at least a year...

American Duchess Kensington Shoes in Oxblood
Be still, my heart.

So...things I need to make:

• chemise
• stays
• bum pad or bum roll
• fichu
• cap (maybe)
• apron (maybe)
• at least one petticoat (but I really need several)
• skirt
• jacket

Plus I need to buy stockings and shoes and a hat.  And the event is in a month.  

It's highly likely that I will not make that chemise.  I'm not banking on it, but the stays are non-negotiable.  I have to make them and the bum pad or it's just not going to look right and I'm slightly terrified of making the stays.

I picked up a super cute (but probably not even remotely historically accurate) fabric for the jacket at JoAnns and found some pretty fabric for the stays, ordered reed boning (that I may or may not use), and ordered some linen blend fabric for the petticoat(s). 

Stay tuned.