Yes, definitely not enough skirt stiffening for 1895
Katy
On 4/29/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In a message dated 4/29/2006 12:04:41 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
One problem that can cause droopy sleeve puffs is that the shoulders
might be a little too wide, the sleeves should start more on the
shoulder rather than at or after the turn of the shoulder, that helps
keep them from drooping.
*****************
Indeed. Helps distinguish them from the large Gigot sleeves of the 1830s
which do spring from off the shoulder. But since photography was off and running
even before the 1890s, you can see in photographs all manner of droopy and
perky and everything in between in sleeves.
There's a fondness for structure in the 1890s...stiff fabrics and heavy
trims held up by complex underpinnings. The skirt in the pattern sorta suffers
from not being manipulated enough. I can't tell if she even has a petticoat. It
seems a little too clingy in the hips and not full enough...things that do
indeed start to happen as the decade wears on. In Janet Arnold you see the
circular cut of the back of the skirts, achieved in several ways. Sometimes it
is a big circle or semicircle cut out as one piece even if the fabric needs
piecing to get a large enough width to do so. Sometimes it is gored. This is
sewn to a front panel that is shaped to the hips. the whole thing is usually
stiffened with something. In Arnold it says buckram....sometimes innerlining
the lower half of the front gore and all of the back of the skirt. I've dressed
extras in real 1890s stuff where the skirt practically stands on its own.
As you move towards the turn of the century, the stiffness starts to wane
and you end up at that droopy, flowing silhouette in light fabrics of the
1900s.
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--
Katy Bishop, Vintage Victorian
[EMAIL PROTECTED] www.VintageVictorian.com
Custom reproduction gowns of the Victorian Era.
Publisher of the Vintage Dress Series books.
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