1770s Indienne Gown Part 2: Draping a Francaise

First of all I prepared my lining, as Katherine instructed. This was draped by myself using Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1 as a guideline. I stitched the bodice lining together by machine and pressed all of the seams outwards, with the right side on the mannequin. It fits me pretty well considering I had just eyeballed it and hoped for the best!

Next, I cut my francaise back to 54 inches, which is a period width, and cut the shoulders out, as Katherine recommended. I pinned these shoulders to the lining armholes, and then found the middle of the panel by folding it in half and pinning it to the center back. Then, pleat, pleat, and pleat again! I did a couple of quite deep pleats first, and then some smaller ones over the top of that, with an inch or so of the original two pleats showing beneath. After smoothing down the sides, I pleated two more times on each side. This is the end result, which I'm pretty happy with considering it is my first francaise gown I've attempted!

I really love the colours and delicacy of this print.

1770s Indienne Gown Part 1: Patterning

Today I started work on patterning my Indienne gown, deciding that it's going to be a self-drafted robe à la française, using Katherine's tutorials and Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion book 1 as my guides.
Katherine first of all recommended making a lining that fits your body, so I did that, using Patterns of Fashion as a shape reference for the front and back lining pieces. I used a mannequin and draped the fabric across, pinning it straight and taught as I went. Then I drew some outlines of the book's pattern pieces onto the fabric, creating a front and a back muslin. I transfered this to newspaper print by drawing around the edge (adding roughly one centimetre seam allowance around all edges), and adding some width to the front panel, about an inch or so.

Here you can see it pinned loosely to my mannequin, which is a smaller size than the gown I'm making. When I have some spare fabric or go out to buy some, I shall see if the lining I make is the right size for me, and if it is, roughly, I'll start work on pleating the back of my francaise using my IKEA fabric!

Back

Front and shoulder strap pieces

My reference

1770s Indienne Gown: The Planning Stages

Through Vivien's blog, Fresh Frippery, I discovered that along with some friends she has made a beautiful robe à l’Anglaise retroussée from an IKEA duvet set, called “LJUSÖGA”. I heard that the fabric style was historically accurate, and therefore I jumped at the chance to go along to IKEA and buy a set! I got the double set, which came with four pillowcases. (Hope you don't mind me jumping on the bandwagon, as it looks a lot of fun!)

I plan on making the duvet into either a Robe à la Française if I have enough material - I did get the smaller version as we're a bit short on cash at the moment - or a robe a la Polonaise if I don't have enough fabric for the flowing pleats at the back of a Francaise. From the pillowcases, I may make another fichu.

In my mind, I have something like this image below planned, with a pinned front and similar sleeves. I've made a sketch, but I have yet to refine it and scan it in. The petticoat will be a similar shade of red, and I'm thinking a simple straw hat with red trimmings for day wear. But before I start any of that, I need to make a functioning pair of stays! My last ones turned out awful as I forgot to shape the boning, so it cut into me - literally - and was very painful to wear.

Robe a la Polonaise from the V&A, 1775-1780

As a side note, at the moment I am still sewing the bodice of my Edwardian Maude's Summer Day Dress, and I have a feeling that some photos of my progress will come very soon!