🎉🎉 Registration now open! 🎉🎉

Two new 18th century gownmaking workshops this autumn:

* Sept 19-21: making a sackback gown, aka robe a la francaise. 🥰

* Oct 3-5: making an English gown aka nightgown aka robe a l'Anglaise. 😍

Full details & to book:
www.timesmith.co.uk/shop/in-pers...

The chintz short sack gown is finished! 🙂

The original is held by Dordrecht Museum. All I had to work from were @monalunasimone.bsky.social 's photos on IG (www.instagram.com/p/B8zVRL_FPjD).

Can't wait to wear mine to an event this year.

#FashionHistory #18thCentury #Mantuamaker #HistoricalDress

The back is pleated.
Oh, the joys of working with a symmetrical pattern!
.
.
#18thcenturyfashion #EnglishNightgown #silk #floral #damask #fashion #fashionhistory #dresshistory #textilehistory #everyinchhandstitched #mantuamaker #mantuamaking

I'm building the sleeves for "Mrs Willing's gown", using the sleeve pattern & construction techniques from a silk fitted back gown owned by The School of Historical Dress, published in 'Patterns of Fashion 6'. I really love this shape!

#fashionhistory #dresshistory #materialculture

Progress on my chintz short sack: making and attaching pleated strips of self fabric as trim.

Photo on the right is the extant gown held by Dordrecht Museum, taken by @monalunasimone.bsky.social.

#18thC #18thCentury #DressHistory #FashionHistory #chintz #TextileHistory #Mantuamaker

I'm planning a gown making workshop in Scotland later this year. Need to find a classroom to hire! #ThrowbackThursday to making this long #sackgown at Paxton House nearly 2 years ago - fantastic place for a photoshoot afterwards!
#dresshistory #fashionhistory #18thcentury #mantuamaking #TBT

What a fabulous example of 1720s bizarre silk! Not too many of them still about, I don't think.... here's one that was in the Crown & Couture exhibition at Kensington Palace in 2023.

Such a sumptuous dress. It's really interesting how the colours are fading differently in the velvet vs the taffeta ribbons. Here's a photo I took at the 2019 "Wild and Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland" at the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh.

A favourite of mine. It was on display when I visited the Rijksmuseum in May 2019. Here is a photo I took of the front. I haven't had opportunity yet for a careful comparison but its cut bears resemblances to the 'wentke', a Dutch regional style of woman's outer garment worn like a coat.

Done... but not done! I have finished building my chintz short sack gown, but the extant it is based on has some lovely trim, so that's coming next.

The "flap" in the robings will get fixed as I attach trimmings, and I might re-set the pleats over the hips...
#18thC #FashionHistory #Mantuamaker

Inspired by @timhitchcock.bsky.social's call to action... Paul Sandby, 'A Hairdresser curling a lady's hair', Edinburgh, c.1752, British Museum No. Nn,6.28, wherein a gentlewoman wearing brocaded (Spitalfields?) silk gets her hair styled. #18thC #DressHistory #ScottishHistory #Edinburgh #PaulSandby

I posted to my IG account today about one of two early #17thC silk gowns discovered in the so-called Palmwood Wreck in 2014. Both are currently on display at Museum Kaap Skil on Texel in the Netherlands. Incredibly rare and incredibly beautiful. Utterly entrancing. www.instagram.com/p/Czd0xNaICBF/

A mid #18thC infant's cap with insertations of Hollie-point. This example is Scottish, specifically Glaswegian, which suggests Hollie-point was not "peculiarly English" as per published literature.
#18thcentury #historicaldress #18thcenturylace #dresshistory #textilehistory #ScottishHistory

#Intro
👋 Hi! I'm a freelance dress & textile historian. My research focuses on women's clothing c.1675-1790 in England, Scotland, American Colonies & Dutch Republic. I advocate making as a methodology through which we can better understand clothing of the past. Looking forward to networking here!

#FridayFancies #FridayNightFrills

Obsessed with this 1740s "tight back" aka English Gown at the MFA (Access. No. 43.1642a-b), altered from a long sack.

I love the extravagant scale of the brocaded silk & the generous silhouette!

#18thcentury #fashion #historicaldress #dresshistory #textilehistory