Usually, my dress plans start out quite elaborate and I end up getting the basic dress done and think, "I'll just do the trim after I wear it this one time.". News flash: once a dress has been worn, there is not fixing/trimming/modifying it in any way. The sewing gods have blessed it and it is deemed as complete as it will ever be. Occasionally, I actually manage to recreate the exact image that was in my brain when I started the gown. But that only happens when I don't go completely crazy with trim ideas. Rarely, I start out with a plain design and it morphs into something Quite Elaborate. Such is the story of my Greek gown, formerly known as the ice blue stripe gown. What started out as a fairly simple 1859-1860 dress with a double skirt and a pelerine has evolved into an elaborately trimmed gown with two bodices and multiple different looks.
Let's start with research, as it should always be. The fabric is a striped silk taffeta. It's a silvery/gray/ice color with a light blue stripe. Here's the fabric followed by some period examples of similar fabrics:
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| Ebay dress, circa 1860's |
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| Ebay Dress, circa 1860's |
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| Musée de la Mode et de la Dentelle, ca. 1865-1867 |
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| Minnesota Historical Society, 1856-1859 |
I wanted a double tiered skirt, and since most stripes go horizontal on those types of gowns, that is what I did. The only times I saw vertical stripes were on 1860's dresses with ruffles, not tiers. 1850's were all decidedly horizontal. These were the two gowns that initially compelled me to do the double skirt with this particular fabric.
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| Godey's Lady's Book, April 1859 (Figure on the right) |
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| Le Bon Ton, September 1858 (Figure on the right) |
I have not yet successfully made a tiered skirt prior to this gown. The 1850's 3 tier turned out lopsided and I have not attempted (nor fixed that gown) one since, so I was a little nervous doing this gown. I did a lot of measuring prior to cutting this dress. I ended up using my black wool with all the blue fringe as a guide (my top tier for this gown ends where the fringe on that gown begins) and that turned out nicely. I believe my top tier ended up being 25" long and the bottom was 27". The skirt is not lined but it is faced with Joann's cotton sateen in the tan shade. I believe both skirts are faced with 8" of the sateen. The sateen also adds a nice weight so that the skirts don't get all jumbled up. Since the bottom tier was only 27" and my normal skirts are 41" in the front, I added the rest of the cotton sateen to save on the silk. It is, of course, covered in the top tier of silk. I worked on most of the skirt during Civil War Weekend at Liendo and got it mostly completed, save for the top skirt treatment. I started pleating it, then stopped and undid it once it clicked in my brain that I was supposed to be doing a late 1850's/early 1860's dress. I put it away until I could do more research on gauged vs. pleated dresses during that time period. I looked for a couple of hours at my notes/saved images before going to the Sewing Academy where my suspicions were confirmed with
this post. Definitely gauged during this time period. I used three threads, as reported on the Sewing Academy as well (I have very few images of gauged close ups so that was nice that someone else had thought of it and looked). Here is the completed (but not yet trimmed) dress.
When I decided I wanted to trim the gown, I had a hard time figuring a) what to do and b) where to trim the skirt. Should I trim just the bottom tier? Just the top? Both? After looking at originals, I decided that the best option would be just the top tier. Why? My reasoning was a combination of aesthetics mixed with plain slothfulness. I wanted the tiers to be pronounced and not just look like a single skirt, so the obvious plan was to put the (as yet to be decided) trim on the top tier. That was a lot of work and I didn't feel like doing the bottom tier as well. But that's okay-I have plenty of original documentation for my decision. Here are some examples of trim (not just Greek key) on just the top tier of a two-tiered dress:
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| Le Bon Ton, June 1858 |
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| Godey's Lady's Book, October 1858 |
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| Le Bon Ton, January 1859 |
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| Le Bon Ton, June 1858 |
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| Le Bon Ton, June 1858 |
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| Le Bon Ton, March 1858 |
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Le Moniteur de la Mode, 1850 (Note
the riding habit to the side!) |
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| Les Modes Parisiennes, 1856 |
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| Petit Courrier de Dames, October 1858 |
I was not thinking Greek key at all (despite always loving it) until Welbourne when I saw one of the other lovely ladies with a Greek key belt. That's when the research started. Greek key seems to be most popular after 1862 but I did find several examples of earlier.
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| Journal de Modes, 1859 |
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| Journal de Demoiselles, February 1843 |
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| Le Follet, April 1861 |
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| Le Moniteur de la Mode, 1860 |
As a bonus, I also found two images of these British princesses wearing a double skirt with a geometric trim on the top tier!
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| Princess Helena of Great Britain, 1861 |
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| Princess Louise of Great Britain, 1861 |
Looking at originals, it is easy to see there is no one way to do a Greek key pattern. They're all basically unique. I wanted something that wasn't just square (such as the princesses' dresses) but that only required one length of ribbon (so that I don't have to cut and measure, etc.). These two were my inspiration:
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| Godey's Lady's Book, 1863 |
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| Le Follet, April 1861 |
To execute my plan, I used velvet ribbon, 1.5" wide. Hindsight, probably a bit too large. 1" would have been best. I basically just made up measurements that 'sounded right' and then pinned the ribbon in the corners. After that, I sewed the corners (by machine) then tacked the whole thing onto the skirt. Then I just started pinning the ribbon then tacking it down.
The measurements I used were 10" on the bottom, then 6" up, 4" across, 4" down, 4" across, 6" up, 9" across, 10" down, and repeat.
Now for the bodice. I couldn't decide whether to make a basque or a normal bodice, so I made both. One is a low necked bodice with a pelerine (also trimmed with Greek key, of course) and the other a basque also trimmed. For the regular bodice, these were my inspiration.
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Minnesota Historical Society dress ca. 1856-
1859. Inspiration for sleeves and pelerine. |
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Susan Green Historic Clothing Collection, ca.
1860-1865. I'm using this as bodice inspiration. |
Fairly simple. I may eventually add some Greek key to the low bodice so it is also trimmed, but I might also leave it plain. The pelerine edge plus the sleeves are trimmed in Greek key. Here is my inspirations for the basque bodice.
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| Graham's Illustrated Magazine, June 1857 |
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| Le Bon Ton, June 1858 |
I liked the square neck of the Graham's basque with the puffed sleeves so that's what I did. I did Greek key around the sleeves. I laid the trim on the same way I did before with the skirt, except this time, I used 7/8" ribbon. The measurements for the sleeves and bodice were 5", 3.5", 1.5", 1.5", 1.5", 3.5", 5", 5.5", repeat.
Of course, both bodices are piped at the armscyes and necklines. The non-basque is also piped along the waist. Both bodices hook and eye shut, and bodice have little jet glass buttons from the Button Baron.
In addition to the dress, I also made a Greek key set of linens to match this dress. The set includes a chemisette, undersleeves, and a handkerchief. I (mostly) used this pattern from Godey's for the embroidery:
I made the top two buttons on the chemisette the black glass buttons so that it would match the dress, and the buttons on the undersleeves are also the same.
I haven't had the chance to wear the low body yet, but I had a fantastic time wearing the basque and skirt at Liendo this February!
