My “easy” project has turned into a little bit of a research fest. I might have found a copy of an out of print book with two mantua patterns. On the plus side I’ve got enough information to now screen cap larger files to incorporate into both my own project and a resource database.

My research site has a category called “The Baroque Frock” and I don’t aim to do more than others, but I am trying to focus very much on frocks from about 1690 to 1730.

Mantua have a very distinct pattern. And I’m trying to find the earliest explanation for that as it still makes no sense. There are contemporary robes made by tailors with the classic four panel pattern with lines of joins in fabric.

But mantua.

So weird.

Not even related to linen work.

There are extant garments that use a linen type patterning in very expensive fabric, but mantua are just weird.

And exciting for that weirdness.

If I take a moment to consider the standard explanation of how they evolved? It’s incredible!

Linen work uses rectangles with triangles. Front and back usually the same, diagonal of triangle to the straight. So that is what I would have expected when a trade expanded to work with silks and wools.

But no.

Mantua have a single long right angle triangle to connect front and back rectangles.

Why?

Why one side?

Tailors still divided the angles section between front and back, so this is a very cool and very specific solution.

So yes, it now means learning about trades just prior because I think I’ve got a bit of a gap over that time.

I have to admit I really didn’t like c1700 dress.

I wrote a restoration comedy at 17 about Nelle Gwynn. Then wound up playing an over the top character for our restoration comedy pieces at performing art school. Not going to lie; I rocked that character and totally deserved my marks because I took everything I knew about the fashions of the era (c1700) and the actress path as well. I knew that only an established actress would have played the role. An actress who had massive clout to get the best frocks, with her own makers, to steal the scene.

I still am not on board the fashion print train, but extant mantua are just so very delicious.

As I’m making my Mantua I’m also in my files, digital, physical, and finding a few more resources, and so my reference site needs a bit of work. I need a new nested category for era (century then decade) as I think it is handy to see extant garments next to extant patterns and even my patterns. But it does mean now editing a few hundred pages, possibly attachments as well.

Still.

I can’t keep sending people page 4 of my list of manuals as that will change.

And I probably will need to change the layout to make room for multiple categories.

Today is the anniversary of the passing of my darling costuming companion. I admit I have never really recovered. I haven’t. Within the year of my Baby Bunny Boy passing my website was attacked and I lost many posts about him that I also haven’t recovered, and then my studio was broken into and my equipment stolen.

I’ve just not felt secure since. I am working on this. I really am.

Working on my Mantua is tough, so tough, but it’s possible as there are lots of smaller elements.

I nearly went on a spiral after not being able to decide how to cut my lace- the repeats are on an angle and there is a top and bottom edge. But today I managed to decide where to cut through the repeats for the top edge and the join.

Tomorrow I baste the overlap of the piece- which luckily do match to the hem to then join it into one piece.

I’ll make some posts about more inspiration.

But for now;

Sweet Bolero and Sweet Zelda.

I’ve been trying to make a more summer friendly wardrobe for some eras of interest and so have been looking in my Girl’s Own Paper articles from 1906-1911. So I just scanned the text for the fashion advice around this plate.

Girl’s Own Paper Vol. XXVIII- No 1404 NOVEMBER 24, 1906 Price One Penny

How a Girl Should Dress

My advice for December must be taken up, I think, for the greater part with evening gowns and wraps, for with Christmas comes a rush of gaiety for young people. It is really a fascinating subject—party frocks for girls -for never before have they been so pretty, and never do girls look prettier or more fascinating than in their dainty evening gowns.

Thin materials are worn so much more nowadays than they used to be; velveteens and cashmeres and nun’s veiling have given way to the finest voiles, thin silk, and a host of strange-named materials which are semi-transparent.

At the outset one takes it for granted that almost all evening gowns are made over silk slips, full “dropskirts” as the Americans call them, and semi-fitting bodice slips.

If a girl has a couple or so of good silk slips, one black and one white, the black one for dirty weather wear, it is astonishing how many different evening gowns she can have for very little money.

No. I to be worn over the white slip is of the finest white voile, so fine that it almost looks like chiffon, but it is no such thing. Trimmed round the full skirt with three cross-cut folds of delicately powdered chine silk, the flowers are merely suggested, not definite.

The fold at the foot is about five inches in width, the next one, about five inches higher, is about two and a half inches wide, and the top one, which is at an equal distance from the second one, is about three and a half inches wide; the narrowest is in the middle —this gives a new effect.

The full bodice should have a waistband, in a style to suit the individual, of powdered silk, and the puffed elbow sleeves kilted frills of the same.

No. 2 -evening frock for the white slip could be made in the same way, of either pale blue or -rose pink voile trimmed with satin of the same colour.

Pale pink looks particularly charming made like-this, for the mixture of the satin arid the thin material gives the effect and the shading of a bunch of roses. I know a girl who trimmed a pink voile evening gown with rose petals stitched on to the edges of the frills—artificial-petals it is needless to remark. It looked quite flower-like and youthful.

The third evening gown for the one white silk might be a of piece Valeciennes lace trimmed with tiny frills of the same, finished at the edges with ruchings of white satin ribbon.

And now for the black slip.

If you have a black voile gown use the idea of the three folds to remodel it.

Make the folds of very clear and not too narrow, striped black and white glace silk cut on the cross.

Braces of black and white on the bodice, and a tight fold round the end of the puff sleeve would quite transform a last year’s bodice.

Over the black slip you might also have a black crepe de Chine made with three deep flounces, graduated slightly
from the back towards the front, and kilted closely for about two inches downwards.

Have a kilted baby bodice trimmed with a deep bertha of some cobweb-like lace.

It is almost necessary to have at least one dark dress for the winter parties unless you are wealthy enough to do
as I heard an American millionairess did, wear a new tulle gown every evening and give it away the next day.

A white tulle gown needs dressing up too- white satin slippers, white silk stockings, and the daintiest of evening cloaks.

This is the age of perfect detail in dress, which doubles the expense, of course.

Formerly a reseda green velveteen, let us say, for a party frock, required nothing better than a pair of useful black slippers and open-work thread stockings.

To-day the same dress would demand green kid slippers of the exact tone of the gown, and if not kid, satin, and silk stockings to match.

Of course, it is much prettier especially for girls who are young enough to wear their dresses above -their
ankles.

With light gowns, too, gloves, slippers, stockings, fans, all must match.

Black gowns must have black elbow gloves, not tan, remember, and black satin slippers.

I think the most becoming and useful evening wrap for a girl is the Red Riding Hood cloak, slightly modified.

I saw one made of resada green fine cashmere, which had a most picturesque kilted hood, lined with pale blue silk; long cords and tassels of reseda green tied it on at the neck.

In white it also looks delightful with delicate blue pink or pale green hood linings.

Light, warm cloaks are so much better than heavy ones, for weighty evening wraps do more to destroy the freshness of ones evening bodices than any amount of indoor wear.

Over my newest and most easily crushed evening bodices I always wear my lightest cloak, and keep myself warm below by folding a lace or chiffon scarf over my neck and shoulders.

It is really amazing how warm chiffon is. I find a motor veil wrapped round my neck is quite as warm as a knitted scarf.

In line with the massive tidying of my digital collection of inspiration, I’m dealing with my stack of printed works that are a bit.. much. I’m doing this so I can get both my Kunstlischbuch and Modular Frock systems back online. I took down my free patterns to make them over into a seamless series. I got kicked out of a group for sharing my very free work as apparently you can’t self promote. I have had my patterns uplifted before so the huge watermark was to at least limit that to someone who has the patience to digitally trace 😉

Anyway.

I spent the time in hospital writing instructions that work for both, as it’s about how to manipulate fabric. So it works for each era by pointing to the style and where more tension is needed etc.

But I’m also making a statement about how patterns systems fail people not the other way around. If you have ever used a dressmaking/tailoring book you would be lucky to find any stating that drafting is limited and so alterations are always needed. No matter your size or shape. Fabric just is not paper, and human bodies are not footless handless rigid mannequins.

This is more pronounced the more fitted a garment is as your fabric starts acting as support even over a supportive layer. You can see this effect in photographs of people from the 19thC. The outer layer isn’t fully supportive but you need tension as body heat does work through underlayers to outer to make them a little looser shortly after putting them on.

But I’m having trouble as I did not buy enough folders so I might have to use an enormous folder for all the drafting systems I have. They are separate to extant garment patterns. But it means putting a few hundred pages into protective sheets. Okay. I will. It’s for my own pattern book after all.

Oh and this brings me back to my personal patterns.

I am redrawing these in a graphics program so that I can share them. My hand drawn 1/10 patterns just don’t look great once you scan them and make them zoomable.

And I am very excited for my 19thC Modular Frock for bodices as my digital and physical collection of drafting systems show exactly what I see in photos. People who can afford to keep up with fashion every year tend to also have access to dressmakers who can afford the latest patterning systems. Those who cannot afford new clothes each year tend to be able to afford local dressmakers who don’t seem to be able to afford the very latest systems. And there is a definite market for reprinted patterns up to a decade after the height of fashion for the specific cut and fit.

So my collections of systems include patents to really help anchor these changes.