Fashion Historian & Historical Costume Maker
I thought I didn’t have anything else to say about my petticoat for my robe de cour, but then I started getting OCD and thought some of you might as well!
Updated to add: never mind. I found that the BEST and easiest way to make things line up nicely is just to do the pleating OFF of the dress form/panier. Then you don’t have to do anything complicated, you can just pleat things up nicely and sew across the top edge. Duh.
In all caps, because I WILL GET THIS SUCKER DONE IN TIME!
Yeah. I’ve got lots to say, but the first is the most important: I STARTED!
So! While I haven’t actually DONE anything about my 18th century court dress (see: wig book, busy fall semester, Dickens Fair), I have done a little bit of thinking about it.
Specifically, when I was thinking last summer of trying to “bang out” this sucker (which obviously wasn’t going to happen, but one can dream), I was trying to think of ways to save time on the embroidery:
If you’re interested in buying the catalog for the 18th century court costume exhibit discussed below (Fastes de Cour), it’s now available at the cheapest price here from Amazon.fr. Yes, the interface is all in French, but the layout/buttons are exactly the same as the English language version, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out — and you can sign in to your Amazon.com account and it will pull up all your info. (Random site note: adding tags to this post to see if those are useful; if so, I’ll eventually go back and tag older entries too.)
If you don’t live anywhere near Paris, be depressed with me that you are missing what looks like one of the more fabulous costume exhibits ever: Fastes de Cour: Le Costume de Cour en Europe, 1650-1800, currently on exhibit at the Chateau de Versailles. The website is fabulous, I’ve just ordered the catalogue, but I am still depressed. I am even more depressed to miss the symposium in early June. Do check out the website. Make sure you zoom the pictures. Le sigh.