The Eleanor Benlowes Gown

1/13/07

The underskirt was made from a silk/poly damask that made the rounds in the costuming circles a few years ago. I bought it and proceded to almost make various different costumes from it but never quite managed to commit to one. When looking through my fabric stash for complimentary fabrics to use with the red/black shot silk taffeta I'd picked out for the Benlowes gown, the damask popped up again and I just couldn't resist the combination. Since I had enough to make a full skirt, I decided to forego the typical forepart route and just use the whole thing for an underskirt. I like this option best, simply because I don't have to worry about the overskirt flipping back and revealing my budget fabric attached to the fancy fabric. That said, I'm not adverse to "faking" it when I must. It's just, if you don't have to, why should you? ;)

The underskirt is lined in black cotton twill, and the "forepart" area is interlined in heavy cotton canvas for extra stiffness.

12/29/06

Front	Side	Back

I finished the farthingale a while ago, and here's the pictures. I based it on the pattern in The Tudor Tailor, which is definitely good as far as patterns go. I made it from light blue & pink taffeta with light blue velvet ribbon for the casings. After it was assembled, I stood back and looked at it and realized the shape is REALLY similar to the transitional hoop shape of the late 1860s, a fact accensuated by the addition of a bum pad that's sewn to the interior of the back of the farthingale to keep it from pushing forward against the body when worn. I took out as much stuffing as I could and still have a workable pad and that lessened the bustle effect somewhat. But the shape from the front is spot on.

12/07/06

I've realized that over the years I've made no less than five different pairs of effigy stays, which is basically a new pair of stays every year since I first discovered this marvelous style of corset. This has been mainly due to minor, yet significant weight fluctuations. The last effigy stays I made in 2005 was during one of the thinnest periods of my adult life, THANK YOU London (hello, walking everywhere for 10 weeks makes you lose a lot of weight) , and the post-London weight gain that happened as soon as I got back into my sedentary American lifestyle rendered them unwearable. So, once again, I needed to make another pair of stays. This time, however, I decided to make a small change in the pattern and have the stays lace up the front and back, so if I gain or lose any more weight (within reason, of course), the stays will still fit and I won't find myself making yet another pair of stays.

The stays follow the same plan as before, essentially a slightly modified version of the original, with a shortened point in the front. The boning scheme was also changed up a bit, for no particular reason other than I spaced out and started sewing boning channels before I realized I was deviating from the original source material. I used 10mm plastic whalebone (scroll down to the last item on the page) which I can't recommend highly enough as a viable alternative to real whalebone. The boning is thinner than cable ties, but has much the same properties, which you should all know by now (resilient, washable, doesn't rust, easy to cut without special tools, can be sanded to round off sharp edges, etc). I opted to fully bone this pair of stays, mainly because of my half-boned stays experiment from last year resulting in some interesting stress issues. The stays are made from 2 layers of natural colored linen, with two interior layers of white cotton twill. And in a fit of historical accuracy, I decided to sew it all using linen thread (ok, so I machine stitched the boning channels, BUT WITH LINEN THREAD. That makes it somehow better. Stay tuned for the saga of my 100% hand sewn stays for another lesson in angst). The eyelets are reinforced with a soldered jump ring and hand bound using perl cotton (linen embroidery floss kinda sucks, just so you know).

Interior shot of the stays

Let me talk for a brief moment about why I opt for the effigy style stays. These are purely my own personal reasons, given without documentation, mainly because I get asked this frequently. The biggest reason that I prefer the effigy style stays is I like the shape they give. They elongate the torso, and nip the waist in just a tad, creating that typical Elizabetahn "inverted cone" shape that I have yet to experience with any other style of 16th century corset, plus they're so much more comfortable than other styles. The second reason is that for the years that I mainly stick to (1560-1570), there happens to be slim-to-no documentation of the pattern of stays used by women during that time. There is documentation that stays were worn, but no extant stays to go from. So, while we can speculate endlessly on what form the stays may have taken, at the end of the day we just don't know for sure. The effigy stays give the appropriate shape, they're only 30 years post the period I play around in, they're comfortable, and ultimately, I like the style. If we ever get so lucky as to find some source material for English women's stays c. 1560, I'll consider revising, but until then, I'm sticking with the effigy style!

Now that the stays are complete, the real building of the gown can take place.