HSF Challenge #6 - The Fairytale Challenge

The Challenge: #6 Fairytale
What it is: A gown for Lucretia Borgia (I know, I'm reaching!)
Fabric: Cotton, Polyester
Pattern: TV 201 - 1870s underskirt; Butterick 3012 - bodice (heavily modified)
Year: 1875-1885
Notions: gold/green trim, green and cream rat tail cording, green ribbon, hook and eyes
How historically accurate is it?   This is a period period gown. It is 1875 does 1500, so it is very difficult to say. The skirt design is accurate to the 1870s, but everything else is based on what I could glean from photographs and fashion plates. The fabric is not at all accurate, though. 
First worn: April 26th, when Miss Nellie Boyd has her next appearance.
Total cost: The green fabric is from my stash, the brown I just bought. The white is an old cotton sheet. So, with trim and fabric, it's about 25$ - 30$.

Ok, so I have to admit to bending the rules a bit on this one. I wanted to do the challenge, but I also have to make costumes I can wear in my performances. I perform a small scene from the 1860s melodrama "Lucretia Borgia" with myself as Nellie Boyd in the lead. I thought it would be perfect to create the costume she might have worn on stage. So my fairytale princess is more like a renaissance duchess with an unsavory reputation.  In the play she is killed by her long lost son, whom she has just accidentally poisoned. (In real life, she died giving birth to her 8th child.) I just love those old melodramas!

The design is loosely based on one of Ellen Terry's costumes as Beatrice.

I used the very 19th century shirring on the skirt.

It was my first attempt at shirring, so the lines aren't as straight as I would like, but it's serviceable. I also used the sleeves from Ellen Terry's gown, because I saw them in a few other places, as well as on a very Italian painting.

 

My sleeves, with this wonderful trim I found in our discount fabric store downtown.

I also looked at lots of Renaissance gowns.

 

The truly challenging part of this was making a renaissance gown look like it was made in the late 19th century, so I needed to look closer at 19th century actresses. Unfortunately, the ones I could find were more Elizabethan than  Italian, since they were mostly doing Shakespeare, or Queen Elizabeth.

There are not many extant stage costumes from the 19th century, so I really was on my own here. I went with what I know about 1) costuming for the stage; 2) Renaissance costuming; 3) what I think Nellie Boyd would have thought was important in a costume; and 4) the fabric I had access to.

 So, what makes it 19th century and not 16th? Mostly the bodice. Italian renaissance bodices had the empire waist (yeah, I know it was before that, but that's what we call that style!) Even true Elizabethan or Tudor bodices were tubular or conical, and did not accent the waist and bust the way Victorian bodices did. The shape of the corset underneath is what defines the shape of the bodice, and just as they did in Hollywood in the early days, actresses wore dresses that were kind-of period, but with a "modern" shape.

Also, the shirring on the skirt - as well as the whole skirt itself - was very popular in late 19th century clothes, probably because of the wonderful shirring attachment you could get for your Singer - just like the one I used on this skirt. Yes, I have a 1920 Singer treadle machine, and my new Kenmore does NOT have a shirring or ruffler attachment (though I'm sure I could get one.)

Why is it green and not red, which would have been more in keeping with the Borgia theme? I had a lot of green, and I also have an 1880s bodice made from the same fabric already. I can wear the skirt and pull the overskirt into a bustle, and voila! I have a new 1880s outfit. Sweet, right?

One note on the fabric I used for the skirt. It is a faux silk (aka polyester), but it is a shot silk, and really pretty in the right light. The weft (or the warp, I'm not sure which) is actually green, so this golden-brown fabric shines green in the right light. That's why it goes so well with the bodice and overskirt.