Regency underpinnings

When I first made a regency dress I wore it over the chemise and short stays from the Sense & Sensibility pattern. I found this to be a very bulky combination, especially under the finer fabric of my ball gown, which showed all the bumps from the garment underneath.  When I made a second chemise I made the body pieces thinner so as to have less gathering but this still didn’t solve the problem.

So I set about making a ‘bodiced petticoat’ – basically an underdress that is fitted and supportive. This would mean wearing only one layer beneath the dress and that layer wouldn’t be all gathered.  

In my research I found several bodiced petticoats that had been made from dress patterns (instructions are available on the site) but I didn’t like that idea as I wanted the support of stays. I also wanted my petticoat to do up in the front which the dress-style ones didn’t seem suited for.

I found this extant garment online and I think I found others at the time, which were more like what I was going for:

source

I ended up making a set of short stays and adding a skirt. I have found the bodiced petticoat to be greatly preferable to a chemise and stays. 

Regency outerwear

I made a spencer and bonnet to go with my autumn toned Regency day dress. The bonnet was begun in a class at Jane Austen Festival Australia and is made from a straw hat.

The spencer is based on my adapted Sense & Sensibility pattern that I used for the dress. I found it worked a lot better for the spencer. It is comfortable and fits nicely, in terms of me and of the dress. The bodice of the spencer is lined. It does up with a frog and has a drawstring tie around the waist to ensure it is properly fitting.

The spencer and dress are made from quilting cotton, which I haven’t found to be a great fabric for these clothes. It is a bit stiff which means it doesn’t drape nicely and isn’t so comfortable to wear, and it gets very wrinkly in the wash. What quilting cotton does have going for it is the variety of prints available in it; prints being popular during the regency era.

The back. I rag-curled my hair which was recovering from being dyed blue.

I was very happy with how the spencer turned out and I think it turns a plain dress into an attractive ensemble.

Regency day dress

This is the first regency dress that I made. I made it to wear to the Jane Austen Festival Australia (JAFA). I used a Sense & Sensibility pattern but I made some changes. Although, looking back, the changes I remember making don’t quite seem to fit the S&S patterns I can find (the one I used was borrowed, and I can’t remember which one it was), so who knows what actually happened.

In accordance with costumer tradition, I sewed on the buttons on the morning of the event. The buttons are clear plastic and should probably be replaced with something more historical.

I was very pleased with the piping of the neckline.

After wearing the dress, I thought it was awful. The bodice didn’t fit right, the sleeves looked silly, the skirt billowed weirdly (more than usual for regency skirts) and the train kept getting stepped on in dances. So for the next JAFA I took it apart and remade it.

At JAFA I had learnt about the cord that runs along the front of the waistline in regency dresses. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE DRESS.

This cord ties around the waist and holds the waistline in place, stopping it from rising over the bust. I also re-gathered the bodice into the skirt, gathering it in the centre rather than all across the front. I took the puff out of the sleeves (mostly by guesswork) and reshaped the bodice. I haven’t taken the train off, because train, but it usually lives pinned up out of the way.

I have made a bonnet and spencer to go with this outfit and it is worn over underpinnings from the Sense & Sensibility pattern.

I still don’t *like* this dress, but it’s because of more superficial things. The colour palette isn’t really ‘me’ and there’s no getting away from the fact that I don’t care for regency clothes in general; especially plain, daywear regency - my blog isn’t called Extravagance is Everything for nothing! This dress is boring and practical and I am bored with it. But on account of the practical it gets a lot of use; and at least it’s comfortable now.