A Proper Edwardian Foundation




After what seems like a solid month of sewing and 8 yards of 60" cotton lawn, 1 yard of cotton coutil,
10 yards of coiled steel boning, 6 yards of lace beading, 6 yards of lace edging, 17 yards of cotton eyelet border, 2 yards of insertion lace, 1 yard of vintage lace, 14 yards of cotton eyelet beading, 10 yards of 1/8" ribbon and 3 patterns - I am finally the proud owner of a full set of Edwardian undergarments: a chemise, corset, drawers, petticoat and corset cover.  Truth be told, the petticoat and the corset cover are each awaiting the arrival of one more piece of lace, and then they'll be complete.  Whew!  I really had moments - days - when I thought I would not get all of this done in time to begin work on the dress itself.

As I've been sewing this mountain of undergarments, I've been pondering how to make the dress that I want from the information and patterns that I have.  Several of the books I found have scaled patterns of dresses from various collections: Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion vol 2, Norah Waugh's The Cut of Women's Clothes and Suzanne Rowland's Making Edwardian Costumes for Women.  After studying these books closely I realized that most of the dresses of this era were built on a foundation bodice.  This approach answered a lot of questions I had given how much ease the bodices of this era had. The foundation bodice also supports all of the various pieces of the bodice, all the intricate closures common at this time, and provides a stable foundation from which to hang the skirt of the dress.  I became determined to incorporate a foundation bodice into my dress even though, of course, none of the patterns I have include such a thing.

Recently I decided it was time to begin designing my foundation bodice even though I hadn't yet finished all of my undergarments.  I chose a dress from Arnold's book that is constructed similarly to the one I'm copying and that has a foundation bodice.  I scaled up the pattern using pattern tracing paper with a 1" grid printed on it.  I cut out the pieces and taped them together.  Due to Jim's and my epic failure to construct the duck tape dress form, the only way to fit this foundation bodice was for me to put it on while wearing my corset.  After a few hours traipsing around wearing my chemise, corset and black heels, I found that the pattern I made worked pretty darn well.  Yay!

To get from my pattern to the dress I am copying I'm going to have to change the way the bodice itself is made and I'll also have to change how the dress closes to a design much like the one in Arnold's book.  I think it's going to be brilliant - I guess we'll know for sure in a few more weeks!

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