I understand that there are people out there making fully accurate historical representations of gowns and they look awesome. I wish I could do that, I really do but there are several obstacles standing in my way. First and most obviously is money and my husbands distaste of me spending to much of it. Historically accurate materials can cost a fortune as a well bred lady would be wearing silk or wool mostly (from what I have looked into). Whilst cotton was prevalent the best description I found for it was on this blog which explained quite articulately that cotton was basically the equivalent of track pants, fine for house wear but if you wear it down the shops someones going to judge.
Well silk costs about the same as a kidney on the black market and I happen to have a lanolin allergy so can't wear wool (yes I know the blog says hypoallergenic... but its just wrong). Plus we do this costuming for fun, not for accuracy. As such if you are looking to accurately represent an historical garment probably best not to follow my processes. If you are after something that passes for a decent price my thrifty cut corners methods will warm the cockles of your cold dead accuracy unfeeling heart. So short version is I know its not accurate no need to point it out.
Anyway onto the show.
Getting Aquainted
As mentioned previously once I had decided on civil war it didn't take long to decide that I was going to have my very own India Wilkes twelve oaks dress. The first step I took was to become more familiar with India's dress - unfortunately I could not at the time locate my DVD copy and to get it over our streaming services would cost money that I didn't want to spend on something I know I own so internet searches would have to do. Well searches and discussions with my facebook friends.
I won't put every picture or angle on here but sufficed to say this ended up being the gleaming find in my image searches, It is one of the costume still test shots of Alicia Rhett in the outfit full length.
This image is fantastic because it really brings to light the fine details that could be missed if you were watching the film in standard definition. The covered buttons on the hem and sleeves show up perfectly here.
My biggest problem was colour. As you can see from this shot the dress is in an odd shade somewhere between orange brown and yellow. Some of the colour searches I used included Mustard (too yellow), Burnt Orange (too orange), Rust (too red) and Brown in general. I was losing faith I would ever find the colour or anything close enough. Seems my mother was correct that baby poo brown was just not prevalent. To be honest I didn't find the colour until I had given up and started searching fabric types.
The second issue was cost of fabric. I mean those skirts could have meters and meters in them. One facebook group advised that you want at least double your hoop!!! that is a hem of 7m in my case (though I have been told by the same person to shrink my hoop down to a more accurate 3m circumference). So fabric type was considered long and hard. The dress doesn't have much shine so most silks seemed off, and well too costly anyway. Wool was to be honest most likely the fabric of this costume but I can't wear it. I wanted something more dressy than cotton, light to midweight and not to costly.
Pattern Selection
Much easier to source was style/pattern. The bodice appears to be almost identical to the TV440 with the high neckline, though the over sleeves will require some work in shrinking from the full pergoda. Having worked with and loved Truly Victorian patterns before I had no issue in buying this.
The skirt style is more elusive. I searched the TV patterns for something like it but it seems its not there. Likely because the pattern for this skirt is too easy. After discussions and some thought I decided it was simply a tube gathered to a waistband and no pattern would be required.
Fabric Selection
As mentioned above cost was an issue, I won't say I didn't dabble in the silks online but in the end when you need a lot of yardage in the skirt $20USD at cheapest for the fabric makes the costume prohibitive. My next search was actually into polyester with taffeta but the results all seemed too shiny for the look I wanted.
Eventually I moved to whatever so long as it was affordable and the right colour and the colour search began - which proved fruitless. Other than baby poo brown I had no idea what to call the colour of the dress and most places have far more poetic names for their fabric colours. One night no idea why I had an epiphany, like many apparently who came before I thought of cause it must be cotton and semi shiny cotton is sateen. A search for Sateen led me to this, on fabric.com
The colour it is Umber and it came up in a sateen search so even though the description didn't say it I think that is what it is. Bonus was that it was on mad sale at over 50% off. Unfortunately I did the conversion maths and it came up at just shy of $200AUD for the yardage I would need including the postage. To be fair had this been in Australia somewhere I likely would have just jumped in, but coming from America what if it arrived and it was too lightweight, too heavy weight, too dull, not the right colour...... Yes I know I can order a swatch for next to nothing but apparently they still want the same postage ($25+USD) to send a tiny swatch to me. The risk seemed to big.
At least now I was armed with a colour name and a fabric type so my mother and I headed to our favourite fabric area where you find absolute bargains with hopes and prayers for a miracle from the sewing gods.
Now this is not the exact colour, but I have been told it is nicer, and at only $4AUD/m it was a total of $30 (yes I got a discount for end of roll) than the perfect colour above. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made and while I am a bit bummed not to be getting the perfect colour I must say the more I look at what I have the better I feel about it.
Bare in mind it isn't as shiny as it looks, the only way I could get close to the actual colour was to use flash. Next challenge is the yardage. I worked out that with the skirt adding 1m to my hem (for fabric conservation purposes, trust me had their been more fabric I would have bought more for that price) I would need at least 5yds or 4.5m. The Bodice says it requires 3.5yds or 3.2m, though I will be saving fabric in the sleeves and that is based on 44" and I have 54". I have 7.5m maybe as much as 8 as the place we buy from always measures liberally. On top of that I need to cover all the buttons and do the trims.
My thought at this stage is my best bet is to do as suggested shrink my hoop (the hoop has the capability) to 3m saving .5m required. be very careful with lay for bodice and save every scrap for trims and then make skirt with whatever is left to maximize the amount of ruffle I have. I am at least fairly certain with 52" I can do it in one drop.
Anyway that's all I have for now. I will check back in to discuss the underpinnings later in the week.
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