The Difference a Deadline Makes

or All You Need to Know to Write Essays on the French Revolution

In 2007 chemise dresses started appearing all over the costuming blogosphere. I decided to follow the trend and make my own. I had received The Cut of Women’s Clothes for my 18th birthday (pro tip: having an 18th birthday is a great way to start a sewing library) so I used the diagram from that (based on this dress) to cut out my dress. It’s largely made up of rectangles, so I didn’t make a pattern. There is a lot of fabric in the dress and it all has to be gathered by drawstrings at the neck and waist. I left out the mid-chest drawstring from the original because I didn’t like the way it looked.

My hair has the leftovers of blue dye in it – doesn’t quite manage to look like 18th century hair powder.

The dress is made from white voile which has fine gold threads running through it. I used purple lace to trim it and purple satin for the sash and hat. The dress is worn over a corset and petticoat. The petticoat is two rectangles of fabric gathered to a waistband.

The corset was made from the pattern in Period Costume for the Stage and Screen but unfortunately my pattern scaling skills weren’t up to scratch and it ended up being too small. It was still wearable, but the lacing gap is huge. I mean to make a new 18th century corset but I am unable to get my head around the horizontal boning. I left that feature out of this corset, but I do think it would be better to include it. I bound the corset by hand and did the eyelets by machine. The outside fabric ended up being quite baggy so I realised it needed to be constructed differently. Now I use this method for 3-layer corsets.

I trimmed a straw hat to wear with this dress and for evenings I wear it with a turban (which should probably have a feather in it).

My chemise dress won 3rd place in the Canberra. It was finished in a rush the day before entries had to be delivered because I put in the entry form before it was finished and then proceeded to get distracted by other projects. It turned out to be quite easy and didn't deserve being put off for most of the holidays.

I've worn this outfit a few times at the Jane Austen Festival Australia.

This style of dress is known as a chemise a la reine, and was made popular by Marie Antoinette. As with everything she wore, it was criticised for being against the values royals were supposed to uphold. In this case, chemise a la reine was thought to be immodest. Some of her other outfits were criticised for being too fancy, or not fancy enough. The poor woman just couldn’t win.  

The above teachable moment was brought to you by a high school presentation and a university essay – because knowing your fashion history is an excellent way to get a handle on historical politics.