The Chemise a'la Reine, which translates to "underwear of the queen" is a very simple but beautiful dress that had a small role in changing history.
At the 1783 Marie Antoinette dared to be shown wearing the lightweight, "peasant" style garment in a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Whether it was because the queen was seen to be in underwear, or because the queen was appropriating or costuming outside her class is unsure but it caused a big stir within all classes of France. The disapproval was so complete that the artist repainted the queen using the same base in a more aristocratic garment and the painting was quickly swapped out.
The damage however had been done. While this garment is certainly not a deciding factor in the french revolution it was ammunition for those apposing the rule of Louis XVI against the already unpopular Austrian born queen.
Marie Antoinette is an historical figure whose existence is shrouded by her legend, her extravagant lifestyle, the infamous "let them eat cake", a far cry from the humble last words of "pardon me sir, I didn't mean to" (having accidentally stepped on someones foot on the way to the guillotine). We as modern people are left to wonder what is true and what is propaganda. What is fact without question however is that she was a very real human being, who's life and death was dictated by the whim of politics. She died as a sacrifice to the revolution in 1799 less than a month shy of her 39th Birthday.
Despite the shock when it first emerged, and quite ironically the chemise a'la Reine was taken up by Josephine, wife of Napoleon first emperor of France and inspired the regency fashion that was to follow.
But I doubt you are here for a history lesson, its about the sewing right. Well, this dress looks to be the first project I will kick off in 2021. I have some very clear reasons for this. Firstly having had a baby in October I am not in what one would call my perfect shape and the ease of sizing in this garment makes it perfect for both weight gain and weight loss. Secondly the lightweight cotton fabric is great for Australian summers, and finally because I can wear this with or without underpinnings. The true historical silhouette will have the stays but I would rather ease back into sewing with something a bit more simplistic than stays, that and I haven't yet found a pattern I would like to make stays for the 18th century. I am open to suggestions on that.
Speaking of patterns, i will technically be drafting this one but it will be based on this pattern found online (so sorry but I can only find it on pintrest so if someone knows who should be credited I will be very grateful).
As you can see, it is a very simple pattern to work with, the entire dress is just masses of lightweight cotton pulled together around 2 drawstrings in the mid section and a further neck drawstring front and back with a separate shoulder piece added. The sleeves similarly are also shaped by either full gathers at shoulder or the drawstrings at elbow and lower edge. This is to be in line with the image of Marie Antoinette. If you are interested in making your own different sleeve treatments not only exist but are period appropriate like this extant example.
We can not see in the Queens Portrait whether her dress had the bottom ruffles but as I will include the neck ruffle I think I will go with a more plain hem.
So what we are up to now is how this fits into the goals set in previous post.
1. Challenging.
Whilst the dress is deceptively simple in theory in practice it requires meters and meters of hand sewn tiny rolled hems to be useful. In order to achieve this the fabric must be cut 100% on the straight grain. There is no near enough is good enough that usually tempers my efforts. I will need to draw threads and cut precisely for this to not turn into a hemming nightmare.
Therefore the skills I am working on are being more precise in set up and hand sewing.
2. Stash items
For reasons that will be made clear in a future post this week, I am the owner of between 10 and 15m of white cotton voile that will be perfect for this project.
Need to source is only twill tape and silk ribbon. Plus the hat stuff if I want to get the right Marie look, though I may do headwear slightly less formal than the portrait above
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