1813 Brandenburg Style Spencer-Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #1

Challenge #1 for the Historical Sew Fortnightly was to make a historical garment from the year __13, due for submission on January 14, 2013.  It so happened that we had something planned for that very weekend. My kids and I were going to do a Regency history presentation and I had a basketfull of Regency Era costumes to sew. Regency definitely fits into that time frame, although there are subtleties of style changes as the era progressed.

With this in mind I researched extant spencers from the entire era, focusing on 1813 and before.

early 19th century spencer from the MET
early 19th century spencer from the MET
early 19th century from the MFA
1807-1810 century spencer from the V&A
1804-1814 spencer from the MET
1805-1815 spencer from the MET

There are various other images I cannot link to or are in books. I based my spencer mostly on the 1805-1815 military spencer at the MET.

Because of my interpretation (as a military supporter) and my son's interpretations through the historical eras of different military personnel requiring me to research and sew many a regimental through the course of time, I decided to make myself a spencer with regimental details!

The Victoria and Albert Museum documents that military fashions were popular in Britain during the Regency era due to the Napoleonic Wars. Because we were focusing on the Napoleonic Wars in our history presentation, this would be perfect for my spencer! On ladies' garments, such as the bodice of the spencer and pelisse, regimental details were feminized to represent the military influence rather than to precisely replicate the pattern.

The Kyoto Costume Institute has in their collection a redingote, French for "riding coat," with military detail that they identify as Brandenburg Style, "expressed in the wrapped buttons and braid that decorate the front opening." This style was inspired from the coats of Napoleon's Hussars, who were light calvary. We know much about light calvalry from having met Lafayette and Tarleton (at seperate times) at Colonial Willliamsburg, and at one program I even trained as a dragoon (light calvalry) with my kids.  This made me more excited to trim my spencer in "Brandenburg Style." I do hope that my interpretation is worthy of the name.

The Challenge:
"Sew something from __13, whether it be 1913, 1613, or 13BC"
 
Fabric:
Black cotton velvet for the fashion fabric, purple cotton of soft drape for the lining

Pattern:
Period Impression 

Year:
1813

Notions:
black silk thread, black brad trim, velvet braided trim, wooden buttons

How historically accurate is it?
This is completely handsewn which is definitely historically accurate. Otherwise this is quite historically accurate with a few exceptions, since I'm not trained in Regency style and I don't know how completely accurate Period Impressions is. However I chose the pattern because it offered a variety of styles that closely matched the extant images I found.  As to the construction as per directions I do not know, so I based my handsewing on what I knew of sewing in the latter quarter of the 18th century. Also all of the materials I used were historically accurate, except for the fiber content of the trim. However the trim looked quite period compared to extant images.

Hours to complete:
I"m not sure. I picked it up and put it down over the course of one week and worked on it mostly in the evenings.

First worn:
Yesterday, January 12, 2013, for a history presentation.

Total cost:
velvet $15
cotton-fee, leftovers from another project
silk thread-about $5
trim-$10

Trim choices.  I chose against the purple. Though stunning I couldn't find a similar type in extant images. The braiding went on the front and the velvet went on the back.

I planned the braiding based on several extant examples. I also made this functional which will be shown below, again based on an extant miltary style spencer I found. On one side the loop was not sewn down so that I could loop it around the button on the other side.

I added self-fabric ruching along the shoulders to symbolize epaulettes.  I started with a peter pan collar from the pattern which ended up being too tight for me. After seeing a ruched collar with ruffles on an extant example, I ruched the peter pan collar then added a ruffle on top of and around the sides of that and it looked much like the extant spencer!

The back has a peplum.I seem to recall reading something significant about the peplum but now I can't find it. I considerably shortened the ties from the pattern because they were so cumbersome. I cut it down and pinned it to where I needed it to make the spencer fit me best. After looking at extent spencers I decided to decorate the small bands with self-fabric covered buttons, like many extant spencers I found.  Also I put the velvet trim along the curve of the back seam line like I found in my key source image.




I covered the buttons in self-fabric, since Brandenburg style had wrapped buttons.  I wasn't sure if that was thread wrapped or fabric wrapped. The example looked like it had self-fabric wrapped buttons so that is what I chose. Notice in the image above and below, that the outer loop of the braiding was left loose. That is to loopit  over the button to secure the spencer which worked great!




For much of our history presentation I portrayed ladies of history indoors with a pashmina shawl.  (Stay tuned for those pictures.)  One of our activities was to take a tour of many of the battlefields where Napoleon fought. For this I portrayed a Bonapartist and wore my spencer and bonnet (inspired by a French fashion plate).  The tour was given by a French soldier (my son) so there are many more posts to come!