English Country Dance Costumes

Here is the Victorian version of a chemisette, the habit shirt.  This was worn with dresses which have a lower neckline, or a partially open front as seen in the last half of the 19th century.  And something with this name would have been worn even earlier, although with the early riding habits a full shirt with sleeves was pobably more common, depending on the style of the habit.

This one is made from Verona lawn, a cotton fabric so fine it feels like silk.  The buttons are pearl finish, and lace edges the collar.  The lace matches that on the removable undersleeves which I wear with my 1860 tartan taffeta dress.

These undersleeves are made from Verona lawn, a very fine cotton that feels like silk.  I decorated the cuffs with some trapunto and French knot embroidery, and the buttonholes are made by hand.  The undersleeves are worn with my 1860 tartan taffeta dress.   I added lace which matches that on the habit shirt.  The sleeves are 16 inches long overall, and button into the dress sleeve lining.

This is my favourite dress to wear at the moment!  The fabric was one of those finds, ‘unknown fibres’, but it felt like wool, and I am always on the watch for fabric that looks period.  It is actually a wool gauze, and when washed (I tested it on the fabric for the bodice) puckers up like a seersucker fabric……..I was quite alarmed, but with 2 hours of ironing I managed to flatten it out enough to work on it.  Needless to say, I won’t be washing the garment…..it will have to go to the cleaners!

I wear it with a red ribbon tie, fastened with an antique pin of my great grandmother’s.  The watch around my neck is a modern reproduction, and springs open just like the real thing!   The white frill is just tacked inside the collar, to relieve the rather dark effect of the dress.  I have to wear dark clothes, since I work often with printer’s ink.

A friend of mine has a black silk dress belonging to her family, which is dated to this same time.  I looked at the construction very carefully, and compared it to the information we have on the plaid wool dress Ontario, now in the Royal Ontario Museum.  The construction details were very similar.   The curved back seams and the sleeve head seams are piped.  The front is closed with hook and eye tape, and my friend’s dress had a ribbon decoration on the closing, with ornamental buttons at the inside edge.  I decided to make the buttons, as I had nothing which would be correct.  Singleton buttons seemed the best solution. 

They are made with a brass ring as the base and covered with fabric, with a sewn shank.  Here is a link to how-to instructions.  I found with heavier fabric that you do not need such a large circle as she describes (my ribbon was bonded to some interfacing, and it was just possible to stuff the edges into the body of the button). This method of construction dates from the 1600’s, and one reference said black ones were commonly used during mourning.  Mine looked a little plain, so I decided to embroider them, using the pulled threads from a remnant of the same fabric. 

The dress has a small stand-up collar (it’s cold in my heritage house!) with the classic shaped two piece sleeves of the era.  The sleeves are decorated with two bands of ribbon, and the edge is bound similar ribbon.  The buttons are smaller, and decorated with a rosebud.

There is a placket on the right side of the front skirt (because the dress fastens right over left.  Some dresses at this time fastened like men’s clothes today, left over right), so there is a filler piece of waistband on the skirt from the opening to the bodice closing, which lies under the right bodice front and is hooked to it.  Some front closings are straight down into the centre front of the skirt, but the side opening seems more frequent.  The unlined skirt is pleated with all facing forward from the back, an inverted pleat at centre front, and a box pleat at the back.  I have a belt cut out, but not made yet.  It will have ribbon binding and a large embroidered button at the closing.

Full length:  you can see glimpses of the white cotton that lines the bodice and sleeves.

I couldn’t find the wool braid that was normally used to finish the hem, so used braided tape which worked well and gave the hem some body.  I wear this over a full Victorian petticoat and red flannel petticoat, along with the proper corset (which is wonderful support when you are standing all your shift!).  As I work in a small shop, hoops are not practical. 

This dress developed out of my new (well, since last May!) interest in my volunteer work at Westfield Heritage Village.  There I provide help with the costume department, particularly with the earlier time periods as Georgian, including war of 1812 and Regency, and am on a fast learning curve for the 1860’s.  I also work in the Printshop there, learning letterpress printing and demonstrating bookbinding techinques, so I have to have appropriate costumes for that time period as well.  It has been a lot of fun, but it could take over my life!  and I am struggling to balance things out.  I found a bargain (I thought) on the internet, of 15 yards of wonderful rayon taffeta tartan.  Once it came, I found it had a gold thread as part of the pattern, not exactly period correct, but colourful for the Christmas season and was given the go-ahead to make a gown.

I chose a fitted jacket and skirt design, suitable for late 50’s-early 60’s, without too many complicated pieces to make the tartan matching difficult.  As it was, it wasn’t possible to match exactly, because of the curved seams, but the mis-matches are balanced.  If I had included piping (traditional at this time) in all seams, it would have helped to hide this.

The black fringe is classic for this time period, and would have been around the bottom of the jacket too, but I had two points in front and three at the back, and it was a waste of the design to fringe it also.  I felt the ribbon line emphasized it nicely.

I wear an appropriate corset, the the traditional red flannel petticoat for warmth (it was freezing the three days at Christmas we were open!), also a cotton petticoat very full, but don’t wear hoops as people who worked in small shops could not navigate in the fashionable hoops.  And to tell the truth, a shop girl would not have worn such a dress, but the shop owner might, if she thought herself a bit above the rest!

  Chemisette/habit-shirt from Verona lawn, with pleats and embroidery on the stand-up collar.  Modern tatting-like lace edging.

I made the undersleeves from fine cotton Verona lawn, embroidered with trapunto and French knots and hand-made buttonholes, and after this photo I added the same lace edging as the chemisette.

Here I am standing outside our Printshop in the gown and ‘elderly ladies cap’!