I'm going to call it my Lady Poe. The background is that back in 2017 I came up with the idea of making an 18th century Star Wars costume, and that it would be inspired by Poe Dameron. Due to a lot of different reasons, not the least that the post sent my fabric back rather than delivering it on time, it never happened. Now when I got my ticket for the ball I knew that I couldn't order more silk fabric when I had 10 yards of silk in my stash. With that Lady Poe has been resurrected. Now looking at the fabric it reads more OT X-wing orange than the the more brick coloured jumpsuit that Poe Dameron wears, so maybe I should call it Shara Bey instead. In the SW lore Shara Bey is Poe's mother and she was a pilot during the OT era.
I have a pinterest board for the 1760's here. I'm not going to go for an exact reproduction of a particular gown though, I simply haven't found any good examples of bright orange gowns.
This gives a fairly good view of the general look though, with all the trimmings. It is a bit problematic that the robes of the era are usually trimmed with the same fabric as the gown is made from, and when I ordered the fabric I had planned to use trim in other colours. One of the challenges will be to simply see how much trim I can get out of my fabric. That also changes my work process. I had planned to finish the petticoat first, but I need to cut out all pieces to both the petticoat and the robe in order to see how much trim I will have to decorate them.
The first step in making a full gown though is to make sure that you have all the underpinnings.
For the underpinnings I'm usng my oldest 18th century stays, my purple brocade stays. I really need to make new 18th century stays. These, and my 1790's jumps, are the only pairs that I can wear, the rest have gotten too small. These ones are also on the smaller side, but by keeping a gap in the lacing in front I can wear them, and the gap actually gives them a better silhouette compared to when they are laced together and the stays just flatten the bust rather than giving it a nice cone shape.
When making an 18th century gown, and especially a robe à la Francaise, it's important to be able to drape the dress rather than just relying on flat paper patterns. This is a problem since I don't have any handy helpers around. I also can't use my dressform as is, since it's an hourglass shape rather than the 18th century cone shape. What I have done though is that I have measured how big the gap in the stays are when I'm wearing them. I have then adjusted the dressform to its smallest settings, that way I can make it wear the stays, and where there is a gap between the stays and the dressform I padd it with some fabric. It's not perfect, but it makes it possible to drape the back, and then I can adjust the front with the help of the stomacher.
Over the stays I'm using my pocket hoops. For a royal ball it would have been more appropriate to wear full panniers, but I have to be practical. I don't have time to make panniers, and pocket hoops are a lot easier to travel with and in.
The last piece of underwear is an organdy petticoat. This was an old UFO that I had started, probably when I first planned Lady Poe, and now it was time to finish it. I used Easter Friday to finish the petticoat. Organdy is a really interesting fabric, so stiff and light, even after pressing it. The petticoat also helped me practice how to make the outer petticoat, since it's necessary to adjust the length over the pocket hoops.
During the Easter weekend I had time to cut out the main petticoat and start on the robe itself. Here s a sneak peak of the current status of the project. I'm going to be soooooo orange when it's all finished.
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