A Regency Dress

Hello dear readers! In my last post I shared a sneak peak of this regency dress in progress, promising to post about it once I got some good photos. Well, thanks to a visit with my wonderful photographer sister, now I can!

Gabe and I bought the fabric for this dress on our last trip to Colonial Williamsburg. The museum had just opened up their exhibit on printed cotton fashions, and to honor the occasion they also released a small collection of reproduction printed cotton! So, 5 yards of this lovely print from the collection came home with me to be turned into a historic dress. The form of the dress wasn’t decided until I realized my desperate need for something that could be worn both during and after pregnancy, and what style could fill that need other than a Regency dress?

So, I bought a wonderful book: Regency Women’s Dress, by Cassidy Percoco, and set about drafting a pattern based on the Morning Dress shown in it. I followed the pattern in the book almost exactly, making a few tweaks to the fit and such. I found the sleeves were too wide for my taste, so I narrowed them quite a bit, while still leaving some nice fullness.

The dress is a drop-front style, fastening with thread buttons (made by my wonderful tailor husband) at the front corners, and tying in the back. The entire dress is hand-stitched, and the bodice and sleeves are underlined in linen.

Dress: Made by Me / Bodiced Petticoat: Made by Me / Earrings: Vintage Store / Necklace: Grandmother’s / Shoes & Stockings: American Duchess

My favorite part of this dress would have to be the sleeves. They offer such a wonderful range of mobility! And I love the fact that the silhouette of the dress will be able to take me through the rest of my pregnancy and on until after the baby is born. I have about a yard of material left, so I hope to make either a matching chemisette at some point, or some sleeve extensions. We shall see which I decide upon.

Some of you may be wondering about undergarments for a dress of this style. I did not have the time or the patience to make myself a pair of stays (besides, who wants to fiddle with fitting stays on an ever changing body shape? Not I!), so I opted to make myself a bodiced petticoat instead. What is that? Well, it is basically a low-cut underdress, with or without boning to be worn under your dress as a petticoat/camisole/support garment, depending on your needs. I made mine out of linen and added boning, since I was going to be using it as my support garment. I shall have to do a whole post on bodiced petticoats in the future, because I absolutely LOVE them! I only have one currently, but I want to make myself half a dozen to wear not only under regency dresses, but also my more modern day apparel. They are SO comfortable!

What have you been up to lately?

Have you ever made a Regency Dress?

Blessings,

Brigid E.

Author: Brigid Everson | Photography: Charlotte Boyer | Photo Editing: Gabriel Everson