c. 1881 Wool Gauze Dress

I finished a new early 1880's dress last month. It's wool gauze lined with cotton and trimmed with silk taffeta and rayon satin ribbons. It's based on a museum piece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The original is a dark blue wool gauze, and I think I did a good job of capturing it.

The underskirt foundation is from a skirt pattern from Fashions of the Gilded Age. I figured out how high the gauze needed to come and then cut panels 10% wider than the foundation and 50% longer than the finished length. The dress used a pattern from Bustle Era Fashions that I extended into a polonaise by matching the skirt to the waist of the bodice and generally following the lines of one of the polonaises in Fashions of the Gilded Age.





( More pictures behind the cut )

It's worn over a combination undergarment (chemise/drawers), a "Pretty Housemaid" corset, a corset cover, a low half-hoop, and two petticoats.