Your Wardrobe Unlock'd

I've often been frustrated that there are wonderful Victorian patterns available (published in the period or drafted from extant dresses) but there is very little information on how to put the pieces together or on the other finishing details that go into making historical dress.

Here I'll address this gap by doing a photographic analysis of the construction techniques used in three Victorian evening bodices in my personal collection.

Due to the Single Pattern Project, I'm most interested in the elliptical style. Two of the bodices were either worn with elliptical skirts or with the early bustle style, the third was probably worn with the earlier circular hoop style.

I've often been frustrated that there are wonderful Victorian patterns available, but there is very little information on how to put the pieces together or the other finishing details that go into making a dress.

My goal with this article is to address this gap by doing a photographic analysis of the construction techniques used in three Victorian skirts in my personal collection. Due to the Single Pattern Project, I'm most interested in elliptical skirts, but I only have one in my collection. Therefore, I've chosen a skirt from the preceding Hoop era, and one from the following Early Bustle era to compare to the elliptical skirt.

While there are wonderful Victorian dress patterns available, either published in the period or drafted from extant dresses,  there is very little information around on how to put the pieces together in a historically accurate way or complete the other finishing details that go into making a dress of this style.

If you're going to go for accuracy with your Single Pattern Project, Sunny Buchler redresses the balance for you this month with her photographic analysis and comparison of the construction techniques used in four 1860s bodices in her personal collection.

Nine pages and over a hundred large and detailed clickable images in this article alone will give you every minute detail you could ever want to know about constructing your bodice!

By now you probably have a good idea of what you'll be creating for your Single Pattern Project entry, be it historically correct or with an ultra-modern twist. Now it's time to start thinking about the details: the trimmings and embellishments that will complete your vision.

Our project gown uses quite simple trimming to great effect. This use of trimming, simple or elaborate, is very typical of the period - the Victorians loved their trimmings! They used it everywhere - furnishings, clothing, accessories, even carriages. If it could be trimmed, in all likelihood it would be trimmed.

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!

Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion, Norah Waugh's Cut of Women's Clothes and others provide us with a fascinating insight into historical clothes. They do so partly by supplying carefully-reproduced scaled patterns of the clothes themselves for us to use in our own work.

That's all very well, but it's likely that the lady who wore the dress of your dreams in 1765 was not the same size as you - maybe not even close. So how do you manipulate the historical pattern to fit you?

Cathy Hay shows you how, both by draping on the dress form and by flat pattern adjustment.

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.