My Bonapartist Gown Doomed to Exile

In the beginning, last summer, I had visions of a white embroidered Regency gown for our homeschool history presentation scheduled for the autumn. I used to do lots of embroidery when I was growing up and I hoped to refresh my skills with a gown.  However one day I was at JoAnn where I found 8 yards of sheer voile lavender, 100% cotton.




With my coupon I could get this for $5 a yard.  What a great price when I am on a small budget with costumes to make for myself and my kids.  But lavender is not my color, pretty as it is. Yet I recalled a gown I had seen at the Hillwood Estate and Museum that feaatured a striped gown from the Empire of Fashion collection. Perhaps I could duplicate the bodice? 

Since I only have had one 18th century draping class, I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to draping and what I learned in that class was not applicable to this gown. Also I've only sewn two other Regency gowns, four years ago for another history presentation. For that I used a Simplicity pattern. This time I used a Period Impressions (PI) pattern even though a Sense and Sensibility pattern had been heavily recommended. S&S didn't offer any stylings even remotely close to what I was trying to achieve with the extant gowns I had looked at. However in the process of trying to use that and all the research I did in looking at extant gowns (some of my favorites are here at my Pinterest page), I was extremely discouraged in that I didn't feel that the pattern was correct. Or perhaps it's because I don't know what part of the era it recreates  Nothing is documented in the pattern beyond it saying that it is an 1809 day dress, a high waisted Empire dress. I did a lot of altering. That frustrates me to purchase a $10-20 "historical" pattern then to not have it filled with documentation, nor to have the lines comparable to the lines of the era that I was researching. I was making an Empire gown from 1809-1813 so I'd expect the pattern to match, unless I'm unjustly squishing into a more narrow window of fashion range than I'm allotting for it. In truth, I found the Simplicity #4055 pattern, for which I paid $1, exceedingly more accurate. My struggles are documented below.

I made a linen of the bodice so I'd know which final shape I'd want to keep.  In hindsight I'd have cut this basic shape down to the shape of the gown I was replicating, which had the infamous Regency rectangled neckline. Then I laid this linen lining on the bias of my voile, following the lines.  Then I did lots of twiddling until I got this.




Obviously the resulting PI neckline had too much scoop for the gown I was recreating. Therefor I fussed with it some more, this time with scissors.  I pinned under the extra shoulder fabric and fiddled, then when I liked it more, I snipped away excess, trying to achieve the rectangular neckline while retaining seam allowance.  With my lack of knowledge, I could not get it narrowed down enough, though it did look better.  I hoped that my trim would hide the curve and perhaps by trimming a rectangle I'd give the illusion of a rectangle.

Furthermore I had to alter the PI sleeves to make them more short and poofy, as seen on the gown I was replicating. On top of that I had to narrow the sleeve band to make it more narrow to replicate the extant gown. Since all of this is new to me it was quite frustrating to have to rip out all the mistakes because I followed a pattern. It wasn't until I had sewn it down according to the pattern that I realized it didn't match the extant gown at all. Since there are few if any pictures with the "historical" patterns I never really know what I'm going to get until after I had sewn it down. I realize the more and more I do this, the better I might get and can foresee a problem.  Overall the Simplicity pattern would have been less work to tweak. Also the PI pattern said to gather the sleeves which I questioned, so I pleated them 18th century style instead. I'm not sure which is correct.  

Then I did the skirt. One thing I liked about the PI pattern was the train that was automatically put into the cutting line.  I loved that.  Also in comparing notes with someone else, it turns out my skirt yardage requires far more fabric than her historic pattern did.  I think I loved the "extra" fabric, not knowing it if was extra or within the parameters for fullness or just what.  However what I did not like was that PI said to gather and equally distribute the skirt to the bodice with a bit of the excess gathered at the back. Wait a minute! I knew that was wrong!  Isn't it?  In most extant gowns I've studied, there is no gathering at all, but all the fabric is caught in the back, just like in my bodiced petticoat and my Simplicity yellow gown with sheer overlay from four years ago. That is where all the charm in the gowns of this era lies for me.  So I analyzed the gown I was replicating and surprise, it had a few gathers around the front and sides.  I have no idea why or how common that is, so I did a small gather around the front and sides and put the rest in back.  However I'd have been happy to only gather the skirt in back and my plan now is to only do that from now on. 

The PI pattern had a waistband joining the bodice to the skirt which I did not like at all. After sewing it in I was too tired and running out of time in my sewing schedule so I folded that under and tacked it down, instead of ripping it out and redoing the skirt. Historically I am sure that is wrong but theatrically that is costume practice when there are immediate deadlines to meet and I fell into the latter so that took precedence. Besides, the way this gown was turning out why spend time on something I was starting to loathe? Heartbreaking, isn't it?  =(

So to make me feel better, I artfully arranged the assets for a quick photo-op so I could at this point just conquer the gown.




Finding trim for my gown was horrible.  White was too cheap looking.  Cream looked dirty.  Purple looked costumey.  My son and I sort of liked the gold...but in my research I didn't find a lot of contrasting colors in the trim.  I didn't really want to do a self trim.  I've lost count of the number of stores I visited in Virginia with my fabric samples to find something that looked good and historic. 

For the waistline I chose pearls, which is historically accurate.  Of all the pearl trims I found, a single row of them looked best against the stripes. Too much pattern in the other samples competed with the lovely simplicity of the stripes and the focal point of the sheerness.  I wanted the drama to be in the assets, not in the clutter. It looked more Neoclassical too, which is what Regency was all about.




I concede that fancy trim against cotton is a bit off, but it's in the budget.  I know the French court members had larger budgets than mine, even though I do have a French heritage. I went through many options for neckline trim but finally decided on this organza trim which was quite similar to a French fashion plate I had found for the sleeves, and reconciled myself to this white lace for the neckline, common in shape to many extant gowns I found.



But it was bugging me.


It seemed to be too many directional lines and color competing with the stripes of the voile.


Therefore I ripped out the lace and replaced it with more organza trim. I feared that this organza would crush if I wore a spencer or pelisse over it. However when I wore my Spencer, I was delighted that the trim did not crush at all. It still looks like this!



Then came the bows for the skirt.



Here the sheer delight of these gowns is revealed!  This is very period and I read an entire history of it Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion.  Early on that's about all the ladies wore and all was truely revealed.  From Vincent Cronin's book, Napoleon Bonaparte, I learned that Napoleon was quite upset with these sheer gowns revealing all and insisted on decency, knowing that morals enhanced a stabilized nation. He strongly encouraging his wife, Josephine, and his sisters to cover up. This along with Napoleon stabilizing France to allow for fashion were his main contributions to  Empire fashion.  He did not decide on fashion trends. He was an emperor with a country that he wanted to make successful. So he encouraged experts in their fields to do their job, all of which he had a great interest and appreciation for. Josephine though set the pace for fashion. If she wore it, the other ladies wanted to wear it too.

Therefore, one of the enhancements to the sheerness was to wear an underlayer.  Either the top layer was a sheer white, allowing the beauty of a solid silk color to peek from underneath.  There are many adorable fashion examples of this, including my simpler yellow gown with sheer white overlay I made two years ago.  Or the reverse would be a sheer color on top, like here, which would be underlayered with a solid white.  That is what I wore for this gown, hence the need for my bodice pettticoat, linked below.


Finally I had everything ready for a history presentation. I think it all looked better on the bed than on me. Not shown are my Regency short stays and Regency bodiced petticoat which I blogged about earlier. 
 

The purple of my gown became a historical storyline when I studied Napoleon.  I learned from the Cronin book that after Napoleon was exiled, the Bonapartists wore the color purple to covertly show their support of him.  My daughter is wearing her purple gown from 4 years ago, from the Simplicity pattern. I thought it still fit her. Since she was busy with college I didn't make another gown for her. When she put her old gown on for the presentation, it was much too small.  We did our best at the last minute. Her gown was made in all the purple teenage 21st century lushness that she craved at the time. 

Something I learned from my 18th century stay making class is that I need a lot of tricks when "fluffing." I was in a bit of a rush, with a Napoleonic dinner in the oven, helping the kids get dressed in proper 1803 regimental and non-fitting gown, that there was little time left for me and "fluffing" tricks. Alas...


This is one of my daughter's best shots, due to her gown mishap.


For the photo shoot of my gown my husband and son had great fun in telling me where and how to stand...






I don't think there is any floor shot of the train, but it was long enough to be a train, yet short enough not to cause any hindrance in walking.  I might even be able to dance in it.  I read that in the Regency Era, the ladies who wore trains simply did not dance because it is impossible to dance with trains. Of course it would look utterly ridiculous if someone held a lady's train while she danced. I think I read somewhere that there might have been a fastening to hook up a train, as was common later in the century up through today, for dancing, but now I can't remember where I read that.  In my research I noticed some lovely Empire trains that simply hooked over the shoulder. I would think that if the Empress wanted to dance, she'd need only remove the train to be free to dance. 




My husband wanted to showcase my jewelry here but I think all the photos hide my bracelet.  Jewelry of the Regency Era, at least in France, would be an entire ensemble which I duplicated with my collection of pearls. A week after I wore this I finally found an ensemble of cameos that I shall showcase in a separate post. Now I'm dreaming of a better gown, perhaps that embroidered white one(?) to wear with my cameos!


Here I'm holding violets (aka cut apart hydrangeas-another theater trick). Violets were another Bonapartist secret symbol, according to Cronin's book.





I don't know that I'm going to keep this gown, I'm so exceedingly discouraged with it.  I'm either going to bequeath it to my daughter, whose eyes lit up every time she saw it. She loves that purple.  I'd have to take up the hem considerably for her and take the train out completely, because she doesn't like all that fuss and easily stumbles. Or I am going to cut this apart, keep all the fabric from the skirt and toss the bodice into the garbage.

And that is my sad, woeful journey of despair of my Bonapartist gown.  Doomed to exile.