Regency Plans

This post was originally published on 30 August 2012.

I've been really busy with uni so, as usual, I've been procrastinating by making costuming plans without actually doing anything constructive.  Since my 18th century plans are basically made and waiting on me finding time to carry them out, I've mainly been thinking about Regency.

I've got a couple of fabrics put away that I bought because I thought they might make good Regency things. The first is a printed quilting cotton in green and blue.  I think the print is technically Civil War era and I know quilting cotton's a bit heavy, but I think it'll be good for a more practical day dress. I've been thinking that a drop-front gown could be a fun thing to try and it'll make it more practical, so that's the plan.  I like this dress as a fairly plain drop-front with a gathered front and this one has really cool braided trim around the neckline, although it may not look as cool without stripes.

I also bought some white silk chiffon with little woven dots, which I think would make a fantastic evening dress but I'm having trouble coming up with something interesting to do with it.  I'm not really into the super-decorated flouncy things from the later period, but it want it to be more exciting than just a white dress. So I have to think about that, but at least I know that I need to make a petticoat to go under the chiffon (which I could use for some of my other dresses).

Then, I don't remember why, but I was looking through a book I bought in Denmark about Louise Auguste, published by Rosenborg palace, which happens to have some very lovely extant regency-era costumes in it.  In particular, it has two amazing silk velvet dresses. It also has a pattern diagram for one, though sadly it's for the one that I like less, but I'm thinking I could do something that uses the bodice and skirt of the one I like more and the sleeves of the one that has the pattern. It seems like the collection isn't online anywhere so I can't find any pictures except what's in the book... Anyway, I think it would be a really cool project, so we'll see how that goes.

And finally, since it looks like I'll be starting on a reasonable number of Regency projects, I think I might be weakening on the stays front.  I've always been a bit worried about the 'regency stays will make you look like you have no bust' thing, but I'm feeling better after looking at lots of pictures of European royalty looking for pictures of those dresses. And short stays should be reasonably quick to make. And they can't be as slow and painful as the 1780s stays.