Month: January 2024

A Pelisse for Emma Smith

On By kittycalashIn 1830s, Clothing, making things

This was an interesting project that only needed to fit my small mannequin, which was a relief since the ultimate client was in Ohio.
It started with a conversation in the summer of 2022 about 1830s pelisses. I have an interest in the decade because we spend time at Old Sturbridge Village, and it’s a weird time period. I like the way that sleeves get smaller after the crash of 1837, and the various ways you can connect fashion and style to economics and politics. (See American Fancy, by Sumpter Priddy.)

Diana Sperling drew herself and her sisters– along with their brother Henry– walking to a neighbors for dinner in the 1810s

Pelisses were worn in the United States (and Europe) from the 1810s onward, though the bright scarlet wool cloak also persisted in use. The durability and water-resistance of the cloak, and the forgivingly loose fit, recommended them for continued use, Pelisses and cloaks were eventually superseded by sacques, dolmans, paletotes, and shawls, all of which accommodated the larger skirts and crinolines of the 1850s and 1860s. Many of these forms evolve but persist– think of the opera coat of the 1920s through 1960s, with its short sleeves, working over a range of silhouettes from shift dresses to tent dresses to bubble skirts.

The typical colors seem to have been green or brown, with some stripes appearing as well. For this garment, I selected a range of green-brown silks for the client to choose from and, eventually, we settled on Silk Baron’s Ardennes green silk taffeta and I ordered the yardage. The lining was made of Renaissance Fabric’s polished cotton-poly blend, as the closest material I could find to the polished or glazed cotton linings seen in period garments.

Lining and exterior, with fabrics for a wadded hood
I had help drafting shapes, of course.

The pattern was scaled down from my own Spencer pattern, and draped to fit the mannequin. The sleeve pattern was a bit of kit-bashing, working between the Past Patterns Lowell Mill Girl’s dress sleeve and my own 1820s sleeve. I chose to err on the side of less enormous, trying to walk a line between fashionable but not too outre. For Boston, I’d make enormous sleeves; for the shore of Lake Erie, northeast of Cleveland, I went a little smaller.

The bodice, sleeves, pelerine, collar, and skirt were all constructed with padded laters of woo batting between the silk exterior and the cotton lining. This was not a fun project to quilt, given the taught weave of both the silk and cotton layers, but the quilting and piping add snazzy details to the edges– and both were typical in pelisses, Spencers, and gowns of the period. 

The sleeve puff is achieved in part through tiny pleating inside, a technique copied from the 1820s original gown in my collection, which was handy resource to have on hand, if a bit of splurge.

If I were to make one of these for myself, I would look for a lighter-weight silk taffeta, and I would consider a striped fabric. Some pelisses are less shaped– that is, they’re made more like a bathrobe, without a separate bodice and skirt (see Jane Austen’s pelisse, patterned and recreated by Hilary Davidson), but I prefer the shaped silhouette.

A 1920s-style Dress for a Wedding

On By kittycalashIn Dresstory, making things, personal, vacation

It’s the time of year when people post what they accomplished in the past year. I’m late to the party, but I found it helpful to look at what I did manage as I think about what I’d like to do in the coming year. Underlying all these goals is the near-constant existential crisis of daily life in this world, which produces drag on anyone paying a bit of attention. Oh, and health issues like appendicitis twice and an ear infection to see the years out and in with a flourish. As I look back, I’ll break the year down chronologically into multiple posts. 

January was packed with disparate projects, each with their problems. There was a big work project that consumed a lot of the month, so Bryan decided that this was the time to plan and schedule a wedding. That meant making a dress at the same time I was working on a quilted hood and padded silk pelisse to represent Emma Smith at the Joseph Smith house in Ohio. Making a dress in this context meant deciding on a time period and a pattern, along with the undergarments, accessories, and shoes. I settled on the 1920s to work with a suit Bryan could comfortably wear– weather was also a consideration, as we anticipated being outdoors– and looked for inspiration and patterns. 

In the end, I made a hat, a corset, a slip, and three dresses. The three dresses were all the same pattern: the first to test the shape in silk, the second to be married in, and the third to wear on our “honeymoon” trip to Atlanta. That dress was made up in a vintage-style cotton print from Mood.

The pattern I used was based on an original 1923 McCall’s pattern in my collection. I traced the entire pattern and then scanned by sections to assemble a full, cuttable version that I could grade. The sleeve pieces were not intact, so I had to recreate the sleeve I wanted. Is this madness? Yes. Is it also my SOP? Again, yes. Obviously, I made up a muslin, but I also made a mockup in some gingham taffeta that I wasn’t particularly in love with, and had forgotten why I’d bought it. I took this step because I knew silk and cotton behave differently, and I really wanted to head off a draping failure.

In the end, It’s a very simple dress: a two-piece bodice slips over the head, with the main interest in the color and trim. The dress trim is vintage velvet ribbon in a simple geometric pattern that didn’t take too much repinning. The accessories are a vintage wool purse I already had and a coat I picked up in a Facebook sewing group. The hat was originally a rose-colored straw sun hat my mother sent me. I covered it in black velvet and finished it with vintage trims.

We got married down on the Potomac River at Jones Point Park, with just one friend with us. To celebrate with other friends, we took the cake to them, which made scheduling a lot easier. 

And, in best vintage fashion, the “traveling” dress in the same pattern, worn at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, one of the places we visited on our honeymoon.