Book review: The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking

"The American Duchess Guide to18th Century
Dressmaking", by Lauren Stowell and Abby Cox

Yay—I got "The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking" for Christmas. :) It provides a wealth of information on how to hand sew British-influenced fashion. As I'm living in a different cultural sphere, I wanted to see to what extent this book's patterns are applicable in countries that were mainly influenced by French fashion.

I'm especially interested in how women's clothes were cut in the 18th century, and as I haven't seen any reviews that have focused on that aspect, I'm also going to share my thoughts on how the book's patterns compare to patterns from extant gowns.

Vive la différence!

One of the things that fascinate me about period fashion, is the range of variation. Styles didn't just change over time—they varied subtly from country to country (or region to region), as well as across the social scale, and between everyday clothing and Sunday best. There were multiple reasons for this, including tradition, economy, climate, and legislation.

I'll be using the 'vive la différence!' tag to highlight such differences. Kudos to organizations that encourage people to research local clothing!

HSM 2017 #12: 'Parisian pearls' necklace

my necklace

18th century ladies are occasionally portraited wearing pearl necklaces, often with quite large pearls which were probably fakes. The necklaces were tied with ribbons, the bow is occasionally visible in portraits. They're mainly documented for wear with the early mantua, and later with the robe à la francaise.

Pearl necklaces are quick and easy to make, as an alternative to the puffed ribbon necklaces often seen in the mid-18th century. They make a nice accent in an outfit or for accessorizing a period dressing scene.

Continental stays 2: The Garsault stays pattern

M. de Garsault, Art du Tailleur
(1769), plate 12 (detail).
Source: gallica.bnf.fr / BnF.

The stays in Garsault's 1769 "Art du Tailleur" are of a very different cut compared to Diderot's 1771 pattern. Garsault's cut has a more comfortable fit in the lower back, and can be adjusted to improve bust support.

Garsault doesn't depict individual pattern pieces, but we can use his illustrations and written information to alter another pattern into his cut.

Continental stays 1: Diderot à la Waugh

Waugh's pattern in
Corsets and Crinolines, page 40.

Norah Waugh's classic book Corsets and Crinolines (1954, reprinted 1987) includes her "Pattern of stays from Diderot's L'Encyclopédie".

Comparing Diderot's plates to Waugh's pattern, I found that she'd not just resized it for real bodies, but also taken some liberties in redesigning the stays. Here, I'll describe some changes she made, and how they can be reversed for a more period accurate cut.

(Pre-)shrinking linen

Some fabric dealers say their linen will shrink up to 10-15 % over the first few washes. Now, most extant linen garments have probably been washed several times, so if we use their precise measurements to sew an exact copy from unwashed linen, we'll end up with an item that will be smaller than the original once it's been washed—and probably disproportionate too, as fabrics shrink mostly in the warp direction. Did linen always shrink this much?
 

Measuring linen

In the Western world today, we think in centimeters or inches. For sewing projects that don't involve fitting, it's easy to think in round numbers; perhaps different ones depending on if we prefer metrics or Imperial units. But European women in the 18th century and earlier probably picked other 'round numbers' than we do now.