Lilac and Chantilly Evening Gown

I love Chantilly lace.  Always have.  When I was just started living history, I can remember seeing huge shawls and frothy skirt tiers of that gorgeous black silk lace.  I immediately fell in love and wanted a gown with just layers and layers of that beautiful stuff.

Square Chantilly Shawl

Chantilly Fichu

CDV of a Ballgown

1840's Image of a Shawl

Evening Gown with a Chantilly Overskirt

French Fashion Plate with Chantilly Skirt

Chantilly Lace Parasol

Chantilly Parasol ca. 1865, my personal collection

Like many who see these lovely creations, I was quickly disappointed when I realized that silk Chantilly is no longer made.  The nylon stuff feels nothing like silk and is incorrect in pattern, anyway.  The only way is to use original lace-which is super rare and expensive, not to mention fragile.  However, it was the same in the period (at least, it was expensive), therefore, the amount and the status of the women who owned these pieces are a very small amount of people-very wealthy women of status.

Now, I don't do a lot of living history.  I mostly dress up and look pretty, so I have a reason to look wealthy.  Most of my 'dressing out' is done at Liendo Plantation where the income of the family (the Groce family) in the period was over $100,000 a year.  I looked it up.  They were basically making $3 million dollars a year.  These are the type of people who would most likely own items of this quality.  I feel in order to properly interpret (even though I am not in character) the type of people who lived in this house, my clothes need to reflect what they had access to and might have owned.  I need to look like someone of their status.  Just because we were in the middle of rural Texas doesn't mean that these items were unavailable or one wouldn't have worn them.  There was society in Texas during this time.  Galveston was booming.  Austin was doing really well.  People dressed like they did in other places, according to their station.  So, I feel that I should, too.

The plantation house at Liendo

So I waited.  When a good deal came up, I would snatch it up.  Now I have several pieces; not a lot, but enough to satisfy my want of Chantilly.  I shared photos of my original shawl last post.  Above, you can see my parasol.  I also have a bertha length that will be put on the gold and black plaid silk (as soon as I get the bodice fitted).  When I first wore the lilac shot silver dress (see previous post), I wore a bertha made with silk organza and original Maltese lace.  That will be going onto a new gown (to be decided later).  I knew that the lilac gown would look lovely with Chantilly.  So I made up the bertha just to be able to wear it, knowing that it would go on something else later.

I recently found a length of about 5 yards of 11" Chantilly from France that I bought for the skirt. Then I found a 5" Chantilly in a length long enough to do something on the bodice and for undersleeves.

        Chantilly in progress.  I couldn't
                                                         decide what to do
                                                                with it all!

I had way too much fun playing with it all.  I thought I knew what I wanted to do with it, but as I pinned the lace on (around the neckline, across the skirt), I didn't think anything looked good.  So I went back and researched.  Then I found a PERFECT fashion plate.  Okay, not perfect.  But eerily similar to my dress.

La Mode Illustrée, May 1864

Okay.  Pretty dress.  Purple and Chantilly, just like I was going for.  So I found the magazine and translated the description from the original French.  Turns out, the dress in question is a lilac and silver shot taffeta.  Coincidence?  Exact fabric trimmed in the exact materials as I wanted?  Now, I didn't have enough of the 11" Chantilly to do both layers.  So I went with a combination.  I made it mostly straight around in the back like the bottom layer, but pulled the lace up to make a scallop on the front.  I may eventually put two little bows on the top pieces but more on that layer.

The fashion plate describes the bodice as a lace fichu that connects in the back.  I didn't have quite enough of the 5" in for that (actually I did, but I wanted to make undersleeves of the same lace and didn't have enough for both).  So my solution was another original:

It crosses like a fichu, but uses MUCH less lace.  Perfect!  I already had made 3 bows for the white Maltese lace bertha so I could use those instead of the flowers on the original.

Here's the finished gown:

   Pirate loves dresses with a hoopskirt!  She feels the need to inspect all my gowns before they are                                                                                 worn.



I am going to eventually add a pleating of silver silk ribbon on the top of the lace like the original evening gown.  Other than that, the dress is complete.  Paula made most of the gown about 15 years ago but never wore the evening gown (there's also a day bodice that I haven't worked on yet).  The skirt was already completed for me (completely lined with polished cotton) and mostly finished the bodice.  I put in the sleeves, put the piping in, and, of course, put all the lace on the gown.