Trimming my gown for the Midwinter Feast

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On Saturday, Rob and I attended the Duchess of Beaufort’s Midwinter Feast, hosted by the Oregon Regency Society.  You might have noticed that my blogging has been somewhat thin for the past week. That’s because I was busily making an outfit for Rob and retrimming my dress for the event.

Yes.  Rob went in costume. May I just say that my husband makes a dashing Regency gentleman.  He’s always said that his hair is “timelessly messy” which is the perfect look for the period.

We left our camera but the society had a photographer there, so I’ll link  to photos as soon as they are online.  For the moment, since I’ve been threatened with death asked nicely by several people for photos of my dress, I thought I’d talk about the process of dressing for the dinner.

Jane Austen often talked about trimming or retrimming dresses and I thought that I would give that a try, rather than attempting to make a new dress. To give you a starting point, this is my white sprigged muslin in its original state. I usually just add a ribbon to it or wear my spencer for events.
I played around with a couple of different looks, but eventually used this dress from 1817 as my model. It’s a little late for my period, but I found the simplicity of it very appealing and also within reasonable reach.
I started at the base of the dress and pinned a pink silk ribbon to the hem. In the front of the dress, I attached it so that the bottom edge was flush with the front of the dress’s hem. But in the back, I cheated it down to emphasize the dress’s slight train.
I then took a length of the same ribbon and folded it in half so that I could have ribbons of graduated size. I had another ribbon that was already wee so I used that for the top ribbon.
On the bodice, I tacked in a delicate lace at the neckline and sleeves.  The dress is a drawstring, so I set the width of the neckline first, then below the drawstring casing, I added a delicate braid in a very soft shell pink.  The braid had seed pearls and sequins in it. The idea of the sequins is fine, although these are cupped and in the period would have been flat.   I added the same braid on the sleeves.

At the waist, I tucked the waistline up about an inch and a half to get a tighter fit and a higher waistline.  The ribbon is the same as at bottom of the dress, but I ironed the top third of it down for better proportions.
I got lucky on the hair ornament. I already had the ostrich feathers and had planned on using ribbon and lace to accent them. When I was at Fabric Depot, buying the trim, I spotted this spray of silk flowers already attached to a comb. The color was right, it had the right feel and, most importantly, it was already mad. I just stitched the feathers to it. Since my hair is so short, it takes about fifteen bobby pins to get an updo. After I pinned it up, I seated the comb and then used a few more bobby pins to make sure the feathers were anchored. I’ll tell you, one becomes much more aware of doorways with plumes sticking above one’s head.
And here is the finished dress side by side with the original dress.

Front

Back

As you might guess, this was a lot of hand work. I found myself enjoying it, but also would not want to go back to a time where I had to make my clothes by hand. And ironing that ribbon with a flat iron heated in a fire? Yikes. Thank you, no. I love my Regency as a place to play but am perfectly happy living in the future.

But it is a pretty dress, huh?

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12 thoughts on “Trimming my gown for the Midwinter Feast”

  1. Julia Rios

    Fascinating process, and the end result is gorgeous. I love the hairpiece. I am suddenly thinking I might need to get some ostrich feathers of my own.

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