FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
The Sunset Wrapper
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
In gloomy, cold and rainy winter days, do you dream about the lovely warm late spring and summer evenings? When the golden light of the setting sun hits trees, leaves and flowers and paints them in glowing rose and violet colors? Let me tell you: Me too. So when I came across this silk, I knew that it sparked exactly the feeling that I wanted to capture. But what to do with it?
I always wanted to do one of these luxurious mid-1890s wrapper or tea gowns. I mean, what must have it been like to just casually be around the house in such an elaborate gown? For design inspiration I searched in old ‚Delineator‘ magazines and in a 1896 edition I found a version I really liked, though I simplyfied the decorations quite a bit.
And now, with the finished piece, you can just wrap up (what a fitting name for this type of garment) in this warm glowing feeling and the memories of a past summer. Or the hope of the next?
Outline the construction…
This gown is made of a gold and lilac silk jaquard, lined with a matching lilac cotton. It was quite a challange to find complementary fabrics to this rather prominent silk, but i settled on a dark berry coloured cotton velvet for the cuffs and the collar. The front shirring ist made out of an very lightweight cream silk and at the top I joined some very fine strips of insertion lace.
I used an 1892 pattern for a tea gown, but of course I had to change some things to achieve the quite destinctive sillouhette of the year 1896: I had to find a different sleeve pattern and add more fulness to the skirt portion. Luckily the description in the magazine provided me with some construction details. For example, I learned to insert three deep gores in the skirt panels at the back, wich are reinforced with hair canvas.
The project was quite a challenge, it was my first larger attempt at some tailoring techniques: The collar pieces and the whole front edge of the coat part is interlined with hair canvas as well and additionally reinforced with padstitching. Wrapping my head around the closure was especially hard, because the fitted front lining closes at the center front but I wanted the shirring with the attached lace and the small lace collar to close invisbly under the lapels.
This is so well done!! It looks like you just stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting. And you did such a good job matching all the fabrics together.