March 24, 2014

Cinderella HSF, Part 2

I made this costume for the 6th challenge of Historical Sew Fortnightly: Fairytale.

After looking at some of the other completed challenges on the Facebook group, I realized I interpreted this challenge a bit differently.  I relied much too heavily on the artwork, rather than creating my own historical dress based on a fairytale.  But this is my first Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge, so lesson learned.



The 18th century dress is based off Abigail Larson's gorgeous illustration of Cinderella:


Abigail Larson drew inspiration from this historical dress while sketching.  It is gorgeous, and it was supremely helpful to have something historical to look at while figuring out where the seams should go.


I really enjoyed making the dress, though I could have made it more historically accurate.  As I said before, I interpreted the challenge a bit differently than others.  I leaned heavily on what Abigail drew, and as she added some more modern components, such as the faint outline of grommets in the front, I added these to my costume.

I had to also make her all the underthings so the dress would have the correct shape.  This ordinarily would not be counted as part of the challenge, so I will not list those bits in the cost, fabric, ect details below.  I did make a pair of 18th century stays, a chemise, a bum roll, a petticoat, and a fichu, all of which can be seen in part 1 of this post.

The Challenge: Fairytale

Fabric: Black Cotton Sateen
Pattern: Draped the pattern on my dress form
Year: 1780
Notions: 6 buttons, self-made bias tape, 14 black eyelets, lace trim, green silk ribbon
How historically accurate is it? 60%?  I used sensible-ish fabric.  When I look at this picture I see Cinderella before becoming a princess, probably in mourning clothes, mourning the death of her mother.  I draped the pattern- making sure to have seams in period correct places.  I used pinking shears on the seams to keep them from unraveling.
However, the construction was all modern- I used my sewing machine.  I also used grommets because the artwork looked like there were grommets.  I should have been more historically accurate on this account.  I also used my button hole setting on my machine rather than doing button holes by hand.

Hours to complete: Around 40 (not counting the under garments)
First worn: Not yet, but Abigail Larson has promised to wear it and send pictures :D
Total cost: $80 USD (again, not counting the under garments)


2 comments:

  1. Beautiful interpretation. I'm glad you did the undergarments to hold your skirts where they need to be. Good job.

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