New pattern #1517 - Edwardian dinner dresses - Research

Just found out this pattern won't be in the store for about a week!!

I miss understood the shipping date ... oops!  Hope I don't get into trouble, but it's not bad having a sneak peak ... right?

I'm always a happy designer when Simplicity asks me to make a pattern for a period dress.  I've done this period before, but the last time I used modern patterning and sewing techniques.  This time I wanted to make it as correct as possible within the Simplicity format.

This previous pattern from the basically the same period, had no boned under bodice and closed with a ZIPPER!!! in the back.  But, you know ... it sold well.  

It's always hard to know what the Simplicity customer wants ... authenticity or easy construction.

The silhouette for this period is high waisted, but that doesn't mean the dresses were unboned and ladies were going without corsets.  These drapey dresses were mounted on inner bodices that had boning that extended a couple inches below the natural waist, which allowed the back of the waistline to be set higher than the front. 

I've always thought that was a very pretty silhouette AND I always wondered how it was done!

When I finally figured out these dresses had the boned under bodices, it made sense.  The construction is very similar to the draped bodices from the decade before this. I have become familiar with the dresses from the first decade of the 20th century because I was asked to make a muslin sample of a dress that will soon be on display at the Smithsonian American History Museum.  The dress in question is so fragile they wanted a muslin copy as a stand in, so they wouldn't have to handle the real dress while the display manikin was being constructed.

Evening dresses from this period frequently had outer bodices that were artfully draped over a tight form fitting boned foundation bodice.

This is the dress I got to spend a day with, examine and take copious measurement of.

Here is the inside of the bodice.

And, here is the back, with a very cleaver flap that covers the hook and eye closure.

But, I digress! ... 
Back to 1913 ... It was so hard to find out how these dresses were constructed. Janet Arnold has a pattern from the period and I am always grateful to the illustrations in "Costume in Detail" by Nancy Bradfield. But, for sewing, I looked in magazines, pattern catalogs and even sewing books from the period and nothing was said about the boned inner bodice I knew should be there until I found a scanned ebook at the Google Books site.  "The American System of Dressmaking" by Miss Pearl Merwin, published by The American College of Dressmaking in 1909 and copyright in 1912, finally had some information about this.  They have a small paragraph saying to mount the dress onto the foundation bodice.  I think at that time, this was the standard way to construct a formal gown.  OF COURSE ... everyone knew that!

Below I will show you some of the images I used for my 3 dress designs.

Next time I will show you some photos of my draping and muslins for these dresses. And in future blogs I have photos I took while sewing these dresses and  I will have suggestions for variations.

There is a very nice blog post about fashions from this period at the "Making Changes in Life, Health, Crafting and Sewing" blog (long name!).  I recommend it.