The inside view of the bodice, showing the strip of green silk sewn over the pleats at the waistline.	A closeup of the binding on the sleeves. Hopefully it will make them a bit longer...

Full view of the front, showing the linen under bodice. The under bodice creates tension on the shoulders and keeps the back fitted to the body.	Close-up of the under bodice. The ribbon I used for lacing is too short, so it isn't laced all the way down.	Full view without flash. The sash is a length of silk taffeta with a tiny subtle red and gold stripe.	Back view, without flash.	Side view, with flash.

2/24/2009

Not so much finished, but...

Pretty dang close. I had a bit of drama with the sleeves being just a bit too short, but after weighing the options (piece more length in or cut the sleeves 3/4 length), I decided to bind the edges with a wide self-binding. I think the sleeves will still be a bit short, but with a bit of lace at the cuffs, I doubt it will be obvious.

I basted in a strip of green silk on the inside of the back bodice where the skirt is sewn to the waist edge, because the fabric frays so badly that I've been worried about it fraying right out around the stitches. So the binding should mitigate that issue. I also basted in a temporary hem for the same reason; I won't be able to hem the skirt until I get the new false rump and petticoat made, but in the meantime, at least it won't fray to pieces.

All in all, it only took me a week to go from pile of fabric to dress; hand sewn dress, no less. No machine sewing on this baby! I dunno about you, but I'm sure impressed with myself.

2/23/2009

Closing in on the finish line...

I blazed through the hand sewing on Friday and most of Saturday, only taking a break to drive down to Alameda for tiki drinks with Kendra and Co. (and to take a quick peek at K's gaulle to see how she did the drawstring in the neckline, which then caused me to go and rip out my drawstring and redo it and now it fits much better, yay, the end), and then rushed back home Sunday to tackle what I had left. I wasn't taking pictures because when you're working the last thing you want to do is stop and take pics, crop them, upload them, update the site and then announce that you've actually sewn something to the entire internet. So, for all intents and purposes, there were some things that needed tweaking on my original toile (minor things, trust me, not at all interesting), and once they were tweaked, I cranked out the bulk of the dress.

Trying it on this morning to get the straps pinned correctly. No idea why it looks like I'm sticking my butt out here. Also, I have too many purses.	And the back view, which is blurry, so you can't really appreciate the symmetry of the pattern. And no, that orange tie is not what I'll be using as a sash when its all said and done.

Happily, the dress fits. The next hurdle is the sleeves, but I'm not anticipating any drama there (knock on wood). I have my sleeve pattern ready to go and it all should, in theory, be a breeze from here on out.

I've also determined that my 18th c. bumroll will not work with this dress, so I will be making a new one before I hem it. The crecent shaped pad sticks out too far on the sides, which is fine for the 1770s, but the later 1780-90s look is more full at the back without any protrusion at the sides. Ergo, I will need new bum padding. Also, I need to make a new petticoat... I have 4 yards or so of cotton/rayon moire fabric earmarked for the job (shaddup and find me silk moire if you're shocked that I dare use a manufactured fiber in my historical clothing), and it shall be interlined in cotton batting and lined in linen, because I SERIOUSLY need something sturdier than my little silk taffeta petticoats. I mean, really.

2/19/2009

Quick Edit:

I was digging through some LiveJournal links of various friends who have done this style of dress and came across this image of a non-white gaulle in Aubry's links:

Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Self Portrait, 1790

And a search on Google revealed some more non-white gaulles in Vigee-Lebrun paintings:

Portrait of Theresa, Countess Kinsky, 1793	Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Self Portrait, 1782	The Countess von Schönfeld and Her Daughter by Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, 1793

The construction of these gowns also appears to be definitely less-fitted than the gown in the movie, and more in keeping with my current toile (See below). Looks like turbans were a popular headdress to pair with the gaulle, though I am particularly drawn to the earliest portrait here, with the rather smart straw hat.

Anyway, this answers two burning questions that I've had blazing through my brain for the last 24 hours:

1) Were gaulles only white or did colored version exist? (Colored gaulles have now been confirmed)

2) Will I be able to live with the less-structured, more historically accurate way of constructing the gown? (I think I can)

Inertia Broken:

Stayed up late last night to begin draping the toile for the bodice. The back was a cinch to figure out. The front was also a no-brainer. However, I ran into one major snag: How the heck was this gown fastened? If you go off of what we know about how gaulles/chemise a la reines were constructed, it was probably a draw string in the neckline and the waist that could be let out to permit the wearer to put on the dress and then drawn up to fit the dress on her body. That's definitely one method... The other option, which I'm thinking is what was done in the movie, is to make the gown a drop-front (ie. the gathered bit in the front of the bodice is actually a bib of sorts that fastens over some sort of under bodice). This is a construction method that post-dates the 1790s by about 10 years, so it is theoretically plausibly period, and based on the hi-res stills over at Maggie's website, I'm inclined to think that's how the costumer went about making the gown for the movie. What makes me think the movie gown is a drop front? Well... Two things:

1) The fit of the bodice in the side front is really taut in the movie bodice. When I was draping the toile I was basing my construction on the drawstring theory and it was apparent from the get-go that I wouldn't be able to get that same kind of close fit in the side front portion of the bodice without some tension being put there to keep it taut.

See what I mean?

2) In the hi-res image, you can see a self-covered button on either corner of the neckline, which is a typical manner of fastening a drop-front portion on a gown to the bodice. (click here for my crappy photoshopped narrative of what I theorize is going on in the photo)

I haven't really decided what way I'm going to go with my gaulle. I can see the merrits of making it a drop front, but I can also see the merrits of constructing it with drawstrings. Ultimately it will come down to how much the lack of a smooth fit at the side front will bother me...

Anyway, here are the shots of the toile as it stands currently:

Front	Side	Back

2/17/2009

Initial Thoughts:

I will admit that the extent of my research on this style of gown has only gone as far as watching The Duchess, and really, that's about as far as I intend to take it. I'm burning up my research-foo on another costume right now, so this is purely for eye candy.

To start with, the gown caught my eye as I was watching the movie the other night only because the fabric is very similar to some fabric I already own (well, insofar as they are both high-quality silk dupioni jacquards in a greenish color). It also happens to be fabric that I've had in my stash since 2007, with no idea what I intended to do with it. I've dragged it out every so often, stared at it, waited for it to say "make me into X" and yet it remained silent. So, back into the stash it went (I did go through a period of time where I thought it wanted to be something Edwardian, but because I really have no desire to make anything Edwardian, I never took it seriously). (Fabric talks to everyone, right?)

So, after figuring out how to override the screen capture restrictions on my Macbook's DVD player, I snapped a few (depressingly low-res) images of the gown for reference. I also went over Kendra's 1780s Gaulle À la Polignac diary to remind myself how she went about constructing her version (inspired by another fabulous 18th c. movie, natch). It seems pretty straight forward, though I'm totally perplexed as to how the draper patterned those sleeves. It will take a little bit of research to decide if that's what I'm going to do with my version of the sleeves... It sort of looks something like the sleeve pattern I followed in Patterns of Fashion 2 for my striped gown, except with a fuller sleeve head gathered or pleated into the armscye.

That's about it for the moment. I seem to have the dreaded Costume AD-ooh! Shiny! Disorder, and I'm too busy to actively start on anything right now, so we'll see how long it lasts. :)