Venetian ball

In my professional life I'm working as a museum pedagogue in an historical mine, and World Heritage Site. Around 1,5 hours drive from us is another historical mine and during the summer we try to keep up a tradition to go and visit each other and have fun together. This year the other historical mine, Sala, invited us to a Venetian masked ball in their underground ballroom, they have been doing quite a few 18th century events and tried to profile them as 18th century.

I decided to wear my navy anglaise. As for the rest of the people going we had had a bit pf presentation of 18th century fashion, some of them had watched costume dramas and then they had created a lot of nice outfits, not historically correct but great for having fun in an 18th century way.

We were a couple of people who arrived early in Sala to get dressed. I had had minor disaster with my wig when I tried to restyle it, so this is what it looked like.

Photo: Frida Unnerud-Björsland

Still I had made two rats, one was a net stocking that I simply filled with foam to make a long roll and one was a donut that I had covered with some dark loose hair that I had. I managed to pin the wig over the rats and into something decent. Since I dyed my hair bright red it's no way that I can hide my own hairline though, so the next time I'm going to an event I need to get a wig that I can work my own hair into.

Photo: Frida Unnerud-Björsland

I'm quite happy with the result, I pinned some feather on top as well. This was the first time that I wore the anglaise with the trim that I added earlier this year, and I love how it has transformed the whole gown.

Except for me wearing my anglaise there was a mix of how people had come up with their clothes. I had lent out my printed anglaise to one of the girls, one of them had borrowed from our museum, one has a mix of her traditional folkcostume and a wedding gown she found in a second hand store, three of them (including the guy) had sewn most of their outfits, and then there was another second hand store.

Photo: Frida Unnerud-Björsland

When we got underground there was of course dancing. We learnt one polonaise, one renaissance dance I can't remember the name of and one anglaise. My feet and legs hurt a lot the day after, since my shoes have very thin soles and we were jumping/dancing on the bedrock, so now spring in that dancefloor.

Compulsory "I'm all dressed up and underground" photo.

A full body picture of me in the anglaise.

1780 Robe à l'Anglaise (printed cotton

I found the test gown for my robe à l'anglaise was so straight forward, that I decided to make another one. So this another version of the Reconstructing History 822, with my modified sleeve. I also skipped on the "en fourreau" back. I simply used the same pattern piece for the outer material as I did for the lining, and thus I got a waist seam. To make it a bit more correct I should probably have split the bodice back into several pieces, now it's just one whole bodice back, not even a middle back seam.

This was made from a lovely hand printed Indian cotton. It's a very soft and thin fabric, and I love the feel of it. To make it sturdier I used cotton canvas for the bodice lining, but some softer cotton for the sleeves. The pattern of the fabric is maybe a bit busy for the 18th century, but it's made with exactly the same technique as back then. Since it's hand printed it's quite narrow though, and I also hadn't bought very much of it, it was quite expensive. By puzzling all the pattern pieces I managed to get a full robe out of it though. It's a bit less width in the skirt than ideal, and that is also one reason why I I simply couldn't do the "en fourreau" back. They had to save on fabric in the 18th century as well. The sleeves are a bit too short, due to the problems with the sleeves I mentioned in my post about the blue anglaise, but I'm going to add a proper flounce to them one day, so then it won't be so noticable. I can't add a flounce in the same material though since I used up every single cm of the fabric to make the gown, that is also why it's quite plain and has no decorations or trimmings.

This is the craziest sewing project that I have ever done. I managed to make the whole robe in less than a day, from rolling out the fabric to finishing the last hem. I had after all just tried the pattern with the light blue dress, so now I could just sew on without any breaks or problem. For the event in June I wore the same petticoat as the year before, but for an event in October I had had time to sew a new, prettier, white petticoat.

Status: active

October 2013

June 2013