Amy’s Day Dress

This is my first ever large-scale historically-inspired costume make. I started this entire outfit back in May of 2020, beginning with the chemise and drawers (pattern: Truly Victorian), corset (pattern: Red Threaded), cage crinoline (pattern: Truly Victorian), and finally the gown which I constructed from a combination of patterns from Izabela Pitcher’s The Victorian Dressmaker. I started sewing garments for the first time in November 2019 and with the help and motivation from Foundations Revealed, I was able to push myself to create what you see before you today!

My fabric choice was inspired by this gown from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (linked). I decided to go with a cotton fabric to avoid the high cost of silk, however. The gown itself was the hardest part of the outfit, as I needed to scale up a single-size pattern from a book for the first time. Plus, I had the added challenge of finishing the bodice and skirt separately, as I want to make a ballgown bodice as well! It was certainly a struggle to get the bodice to fit properly, but with the help of the mentors in the Facebook group, my project really took on the proper historical shapes of the late 1850s! I combined a number of historical and modern techniques to get the gown to come together, and I’m very happy with the result.