As part of celebrating the centenary anniversary of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, the Dorman Museum invited my college year group to create costumes representing each decade since the bridge had opened. The historical dresses I had made previous to this was the Victorian leisurewear dress and the Regency dress. As I hadn’t yet attempted to either make a historical dress with the structured underwear or a historical/vintage themed wedding dress I thought I’d crack two birds with one stone and get the job done!
This has got to be one of my favourite costumes I’ve had the pleasure of creating. I used the Janet Arnold ‘Patterns for fashion’ book which is composed of genuine vintage dress patterns and modified the design to be appropriate for a wedding of the Edwardian era. I used books such as John Peacocks,’ ‘ to help me with this design especially in the use of fabrics, the corset and in the design of the veil.
Ok so I splashed out probably a little more than I could afford for this dress. So worth it though. I decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it properly! I used duchess satin as the weight and sheen stunningly suits this era of dress perfectly. I actually had a few issues with the lace I chose for this dress. I couldn’t afford a natural lace that would have been used authentically in this dress however I chose one that aesthetically looked fitting and one that I could afford. The main issue I had was that it was at the end of the roll and I literally couldn’t find it anywhere else on the web. So I had to manipulate my design in order for the lace I did have to stretch. I cut the dress lace pattern so that there was an opening in the centre front which if you refer back to the Janet Arnold book isn’t evident in the pattern.
Happy problem solved. I think that it looks much prettier with this open front than if it wasn’t there. I love happy problem solving:)
The centre band and tie end was embellished with pearls instead of beads as I felt it suited the wedding look and lets be honest who can say ‘no’ to a string of beads? The leaves were embroidered with cream embroidery cotton which I enjoyed doing while catching up with a bit of ‘North and South’ and Mr Richard Armitage. Both Richard and Colin Firth have been such an encouragement (or massive distraction) in those times of hand embellishment and they don’t even know it.
The corset was made with cotton drill and steel bones. The petticoat was made with cotton lawn and both were edged with cotton lace and peach coloured satin ribbon- must have been seen as quite kinky in those days. How they would blush at what modern brides wear! My poor model cursed me for making the corset so authentic that it actually pulled her in a dress size but I’ve got to say she looked incredible, even if she couldn’t breathe, she made a stunning bride.
In this project I really developed my skills in resizing historical patterns and structured undergarments which was really fun. I’ll admit it. I’m a total costume nerd. As a personal project I even decided to make a bustle to go with the corset and petticoat even though it wouldn’t be worn under the wedding dress. The reason behind this was that I hadn’t made any structured underwear aside from corsets and since I’d started the course I’d been dying to have a go. I’ve got to say it wasn’t as hard as I thought it might have been. Something else to tick off on that costume maker’s bucket list.
The pride I felt as this dress was flaunted in the Dorman museum!
Crackin’!
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