Your Wardrobe Unlock'd

Examining and challenging myths and assumptions about the petticoat’s style, use and nature during the Regency period. 

Tucks were a favorite decoration from the 1820s to Teens: here's how to create a mid-19th c.-style tucked petticoat, start to finish.

In Part II, we look at the numerous skirt supports that the early Victorian woman wore to hold out her skirts and look fashionable.

Studying the undergarments of a transitional period in which styles shifted slowly but dramatically.

Monochromatic Embroidery is an umbrella term used to describe a type of embellishment popular during the 16th Century.

An eye-opening combination of machine sewing and delicate hand stitching.

Bonus article from FR

Making a new outfit for a young Tudor lady.

Part 2: foresleeves, forepart, kirtle layers, and revisiting the smock.

Making sense of ladies' underwear 1876-82.

2: What to wear over the corset and under the dress, plus fabrics.

The underwear situation in the Natural Form Era was.... complicated!  Ladies had an outfit for every situation and time of day, and underwear to go with it. To further add confusion, the "Dress Reform" movement was at its height: its main focus was on changing corsets and what was worn underneath them, all in the name of health. 

So what did women wear under their dresses?  It all depends on a variety of factors.  I'll walk you through all the different layer options starting from the skin out, with variations in necklines and politics. Next month I'll complete the layers and show you how to combine them.

It is surely a dream of many a young girl to wear a beautiful dress. It is doubly so when the young girl is a re-enactor playing the role of a Tudor Gentry girl.

One young lady will be given that very dream at Kentwell Hall's Tudor Events this summer. Eleven-year-old Etty has been portraying a young gentry girl for the past two years, but for the first time she will be wearing a tailor-made gown suitable for her character's status in the year 1538.

I have been commissioned to make the entire ensemble for Etty, and readers can follow the process, picking up techniques and tips that I use. All the techniques and patterning can be applied to adult women's gowns of the period as well as a young girl's gown.

This month:

Trisha asks about creating a dress form for a French fashion doll and patterns for it. Shawn inquires about the historically correct way to piece an 1880 chemise Cathy explains about the DPP Corsets competition and FR

 

Originally published as part of our 2009 Single Pattern Project, this extract from our lengthy article on recreating 1860s underthings focusses on that most intimidating of engineered supports: the cage crinoline.

Sunny Buchler talks you through the history, the practicalities of moving in such a contraption, patterns and book references.

There is no right way to make a sixteenth century corset. In period, each garment was made for a specific woman with specific wants and needs.

That means that those of us who want to recreate the clothing of the period have a bit of a mystery to unravel. Luckily, two pairs of bodies from the period have survived to help give us a clearer picture of what those corsets looked like and how they functioned.

Lindsey Eastman has tested each of these period patterns, plus one modern interpretation and one “hybrid” style, in order to compare them and determine the advantages and disadvantages for herself - and for us!

To ensure your 1860's day dress is always smooth and perfect, you really need the extra layer that a petticoat provides. Nothing can ruin the line of a beautiful gown faster than the tell-tale lines of a hoop skirt showing on the outside! But where do you find the time for all this underwear?

Ginger Breo shows you the fastest way to rustle up a great 1860s petticoat. It's easy, it's lightning fast - you can have a new petticoat in just a few hours - and it'll work equally well for all petticoats that are worn over a hoop skirt of some kind. Ladies and gentlemen, start your sewing machines!

Where would you start with an 1860s day dress, as in the 2009 YWU Single Pattern Project? With the underpinnings, of course!

Sunny Buchler talks you through every single item that our Victorian lady might have worn under her gown, with references to appropriate patterns from all sources - the big pattern companies, the small historical pattern companies and from books.

If you're into historical accuracy and you want to go the whole hog, here's your starting point!

 

Feeling despair at where to find supplies for your underpinnings for the Single Pattern Project? Don't fret!

Cathy has sent Marion McNealy off on another sourcing hunt. Her orders? Find online suppliers for the underpinnings!

So Marion has done her best and found caged crinoline supplies (kits and made to order), fine cotton voile, lawn and muslin for chemises and petticoats, and wide eyelet and cut work lace for making them frilly.

We've included our list of corsetry suppliers here aswell for convenience.

After a wait of almost ten years, Patterns of Fashion 4 was released in late 2008. Janet Arnold's final work covers all kinds of extant ruffs, collars, smocks, shifts and chemises in astounding detail, with mouth-watering photographs and the clear, complete annotated patterns that she was so famous for.

To celebrate, we thought we'd feature details on where to get some of the fine quality materials to re-create the items in the book.

Knickers. Bloomers, if you will. Drawers; underthings; unmentionables; nether garments. When you get into them (pun intended), our most ignominious items of clothing actually have a rich and fascinating history. Over the course of history, those parts of a woman's outfit that few men saw and most men wanted to have steadily transformed themselves from nothing at all to a remarkably complex class of garments.