Green Silk Sacques

I was searching online recently and found some images of a lovely 18th century gown and thought "Hey, that looks familiar!" It's making me have second thoughts about remodeling my own green silk sacque.
But only a little. :)

 Robe a la Francaise 1725, European, Made of silk - Source

The Green Silk Sacque

Hello everyone! I will be announcing the winner of my "Color Recipes for Spring" photo contest next week.  But until then, please enjoy this post. :)

I've been going through some photos of my past projects. I've posted a few images of this 18th century gown before but I feel like I have not done it justice here on my blog. My first post about it back in 2012 shows a few construction pictures. Believe it or not, this was one of my very first 18th century gowns. I attempted one before using diagrams and notes from some well-known costuming books but the final result left much to be desired.

First wore for a little photo shoot in the fall of 2009. It was not 100% finished, the back neck facing was missing and it didn't have cuffs. But I really wanted to get some pictures of it. Please excuse the silly "doily" pinner cap on my head. I didn't have a proper cap at the time to wear with such a formal gown. Fortunately, I've since purchased "The Profligate" precut cap kit from Larkin and Smith. It will be perfect with this gown. I can't wait to have it finished and do another photo shoot.

For all the photos in the post the gown was worn over a linen shift, fully boned stays, pocket hoops, under petticoat and a matching silk petticoat.

These two photos were taken inside my parents house. The house was built sometime between 1790 and 1800. When removing some old wallpaper in the front hall, we discovered not only the original plaster wall but remains of some stenciling. Over the years my mom was able to recreate the stencils and repaint the wall. (Similar wall stencils can be seen in historic buildings at the Shelburne Museum and Historic Deerfield.)

The gown's first real debut was at my 18th century garden party the following summer. You'll notice the addition of the large wing cuffs that were common in the 1740s and into the 1750s.

Then in Williamsburg in 2010 with my ridiculous hair. And yes, that's all my real hair.

My friend Abby borrowed the gown for historic fashion show I organized for a local historical society. It was fun to see how the the gown looked on someone else. I still have plans to update this gown but as I don't have many opportunities to wear this or my ivory silk gown, that project has taken a back seat.

Updating the Silk Sacque

To avoid the extra cost of creating a new gown from scratch, many gowns in the 18^th were restyled to suit the latest fashions. (Hallie has a great series of posts about that on her blog, Sign of the Golden Scissors.) When creating my silk sacque I wanted a gown that dated to about 1750. The gown was made with large wing cuffs, a matching silk petticoat, and no trim. I have worn the gown a few times now and while I still like the simplistic look of the 1750s, I would really like to update the gown. 

I plan to remove the cuffs and replace them with sleeve flounces. So far I have only succeeded in finishing the new stomacher. Eventually I will add matching trim the gown skirts and petticoat. The inspiration for my stomacher came from this example at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. As there are no events coming up anytime soon when I might be able to wear my updated gown, I've not been in any hurry to finish it. It's nice to have deadlines to finish a project but at the same time I enjoy not being rushed. 

The overall look that I hope to achieve is seen in the images below. I love the serpentine trims of the 1760s. I will probably only have one tier on my petticoat instead of the 3 seen in the yellow gown from the MET. 

MET 17.120.210

MET 1996.374a–c

Here you can see the trim for the new stomacher pinned in place. I found that extra long quilters pins were helpful in holding the trim in place. I used pinking shears to cut fabric strips about 1 1/2 “ wide then ran a long gathering stitch down the middle. I played with the fabric for a while to get the look I wanted. 

To make the circular trim I used the same technique but placed my gathering stitches along the edge of the fabric strips. I gently pulled the thread gathering the fabric to create each circle. The short ends of the fabric were then sewn together and the circles tacked to the stomacher. To create the different sized circles I varied the width of the fabric. Below you and see the finished stomacher. Also my new stays! (well new as of about 2 years ago anyway. ;) )