Re-do, part 2 - The Politics of Fashion

Woo-hoo, my entry for the Historical Sew Fortnightly Politics of Fashion challenge (due Sunday 15 June, so only a mere 24 weeks late) is finally finished!

Done at last!

When last seen, my Wiener Werkstätte inspired dress was complete apart from adding the rose decoration. So, once the roses were finally (and flatly) made a couple of weeks ago, it should have been quick and easy to finish the dress.

File under "Good in theory". The roses and leaves on the dress sleeves and the corners of the organza overskirt were easy to attach, but the posy at the bust just didn't want to play at all.

Part of the problem was not so much attaching the roses, as working out where to attach them. Trying to do this with the dress laid flat on the table didn't really give a clear idea of how the finished dress would look. Trying to do this with the dress on Nancy usually meant that the pinned-on roses had fallen off by the time I'd got the dress back on the table to sew it.

Then there was also the question of how the fasten the velvet band round the bust. The band is sewn on under the flowers on the left, and the original idea was that it would be left loose to wrap round the back, and close with a hook and bar concealed under some of the flowers on the right. However it tended to slip on the organza, which left the join of the bodice to the skirt visible at the back. In the end I sewed the top edge of the band to the bodice/skirt seam all the way round to the placket on the right.

The velvet band sewn in place round the back

The part of the band which was originally going to be attached to the dress does not have velvet over it, it is just petersham ribbon. I sewed this in place with a row of stitches to mark the centre, then added one large rose and a leaf. Then I sewed another large rose and a leaf to the other end of the band. The third large rose was attached to the dress, above the band, A medium rose was added below this one. When I tried fastening the band, some of the petersham was visible, so I covered it with a scrap of green satin.

The trimming in progress, with the band unfastened

Next three smaller roses were attached to the dress on the left of the posy, while on the right only two were attached, with the third one was added to the loose end of the band. Finally leaves were added round the edges, with two filling the gap in the centre.

The dress fastened, with not a hook or bar in sight

Actually getting the hooks and bars fastened when the dress is on is quite tricky under all those flowers, but it works, and I think it is quite an accurate reflection of the fiendishly complicated fastenings of the period.

So here is the finished dress shown beside its inspiration. For some reason the bodice looks quite a bit longer on my version. Not sure how this happened, as I can confirm that the band on mine is directly below my bust (making it even harder when trying to find the hooks and bars to close the dress!). Still, I'm really pleased with the end result.

The original, and my interpretation

Re-do, part 1 (probably of several) - roses

The current Historical Sew Fortnightly challenge is "Re-do", defined as:
"Pick any previous challenge and re-do it (or do it for the first time). It could be one that you didn’t finish, one that you wish you’d had more time for, or any time for, or one where you loved the theme so much you want to do it again."

Well, it's been a while since I've done much Historical Sew Fortnightly sewing, but this challenge throws up so many opportunities that the main problem is, where to start?

Under "one that you didn't finish" comes my Politics of Fashion Wiener Werkstätte dress and, specifically, the roses.

The first one turned out really well; exactly what I wanted.

It all started so well . . .

Unfortunately things went downhill from there! I just couldn't get my subsequent attempts to produce the flat flowers that I needed for the dress. Eventually I gave up in disgust.

The re-do challenge has inspired me to have another go. I unpicked the later roses and tried again. It took a couple of attempts, but eventually I produced the other five roses I needed for the sleeves and the dress corners.

The smaller roses on the bodice are made from narrower tubes of a different satin, and also turned out nice and flat.

The bodice decoration - apologies for the grainy image

However despite my best efforts and my new-found skills in rose flatness, the large bodice roses turned out very flouffy indeed.

Flat rose and flouffy rose

So I decided to cheat. I cut out small circles from a scrap of pelmet vilene left over from making last year's straw bag, stitched a double thickness thread into the centre back of the rose, pulled the ends of the thread through the vilene disk, and tied them in a knot.

Rose flattening - after and before

So now I have a selection of roses, in different sizes and colours.

Finished roses

When I checked through the previous posts about this project, I realised that I hadn't explained how the leaves were made. I hadn't taken any 'in progress' photos either (bad blogger!), so I part unpicked a leaf in order to explain now. Each leaf is made from half a circle of green satin. The half circle is folded to form a cone, then the raw straight edge is turned under and slip-stitched in place. Finally the curved edge is gathered through the double thickness, and the gathering pulled tight to form the leaf.

Leaf in progress and completed

Now all I need to do is assemble the leaves and flowers on the dress.

The Politics of Fashion

Gah! My entry for the Politics of Fashion challenge still isn’t finished! However as a) the next challenge, Shape and Support, is due on Tuesday and b) I need to concentrate on dance costume projects for a few weeks so will have to add this challenge to the PHD pile, I thought I’d post about it now.

There’s also the small matter that the lovely Gina of Beauty From Ashes very kindly nominated me for a Liebster Award some weeks ago, and I haven’t had time to blog about that either. I will write it up soon, I promise!

Anyway, back to the challenge. The requirement was to:
“Craft something that demonstrates the interactions between dress and political history.”

Now lots of different things inspire me to create. Some are more or less direct recreations of an item, while for others the inspiration takes a less obvious route. Sometimes the response is immediate, and other times the inspiration can rattle round in my head for a while before I decide how to use it. My contribution to this challenge has rattled around for longer than most: it is inspired by an exhibition I saw almost 31 years ago, which must be some sort of record!

The exhibition formed part of the Edinburgh Festival in summer 1983, and was called “Vienna 1900”. It was about the Vienna Secession; the breakaway art movement formed in 1897 by a number of Austrian artists, who objected to what they saw as the conservative attitudes of the Austrian art establishment. Six years later two of the Secession artists, Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann, founded the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) with the goal of reforming the applied arts.

The Wiener Werkstätte logo

The idea of an upstart new movement rebelling against the narrow ideals of a long-established empire (in this case the Hapsbergs) stuck in my mind, but I never really pursued it. Then when browsing on Pinterest (again) for something else, I found this.

Printed silk and velvet dress, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, Vienna, 1911

The Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna holds the photographic archive of Wiener Werkstätte, including a number of designs by Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill. He had studied under Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, and joined the Wiener Werkstätte in 1907, where he served as first artistic director of the fashion department. As well as photographs of dresses on mannequins, the archive contains a number of drawings, plus photographs of the dresses being worn. These show that the clothes were designed to be worn without corsets.

Drawings and photographs of two ensembles (dogs optional)

I loved these three dresses, with their Klimt-like decoration.

Three dresses with embroidered panels, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill

However, although I suffer from a bad case of DATDATOMP syndrome (Deluded About The Do-ability And Timescales Of Major Projects), even I could tell that recreating one of these would be a ridiculously large undertaking.

Then I found this 1911 dress, which seemed much simpler (deceptively so, as it turns out). A high-waisted dress in silk, velvet and organza, with the fabric roses which Wimmer-Wisgrill seems to have used a lot.

Dress, Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill, Vienna, 1911

I considered using a regency dress pattern such as the Sense and Sensibility one, but decided that it would be easier just to make my own from scratch. The skirt was just two rectangular panels. For the bodice I used my basic bodice block, raised the waistline, moved the darts down to the bottom of the bodice and gathered along the bottom to fit. (There was a slight hiccup when I didn’t enlarge the neckline from the original jewel neckline on the front-opening block, and tried to pull the toile over my head, but we don’t talk about that!)

The toile that was never going to work

It is apparent from the photograph that the organza panels are attached to the velvet skirt all the way round, and do not hang free. The edges are covered with braid. I had hoped to be able to machine sew the braid in place, but sadly this didn’t work at all, so hand sewing it was. I cut each skirt piece larger than I needed, pinned them and the braid into place, and then sewed round the inner edge of the braid. Then I cut the organza to just inside the braid, and sewed the outer edge down.

Braid and organza pinned to the velvet

Cutting away the excess organza and sewing the braid

The bodice was a bit more complicated. On the photograph there doesn’t seem to be a join between the organza on the body section and the organza on the sleeve. Because the section where there should be a seam is quite small, I decided that I could cut the organza bodice front and sleeves in one piece, and only have a seam joining the back to the sleeve.

The patterns for the bodice organza sections

Because the neckline is so wide, and I was using a slightly stretchy and totally non-period velvet, I added a facing of a firm cotton to keep the neckline in place.

The completed bodice, front view

Actually getting the organza and velvet to lie flat together took several re-dos, and is a large part of why the project is taking so long. However the actual dress is done now, and 'all' that remains is to attach the belt, make the last of the roses, attach the roses and the leaves, and sew on hooks and eyes for the side fastening. That will have to wait, probably for a couple of months now, but I will post pictures of the finished dress. For now, here is progress so far.

The dress, mostly minus roses

Close-up of the sleeve decoration

The small print:
The Challenge: The Politics of Fashion
Fabric: Velvet, organza and satin for the roses and leaves – all synthetic
Pattern: My own
Year: 1911
Notions: Braid for trim, hooks and eyes for fasten
How historically accurate is it? It is based on an actual dress of 1911, but the man-made fabrics let it down, so I'd say 50%
Hours to complete: A lot, and not yet finished
First worn: Not yet
Total cost: Velvet £11.49, organza £4.40, braid £3.60, satin remnants £5.12 (with a lot left) everything else from stash, so £24.61
How politics relate to this item: The dress is linked to the Vienna Secession, which was a movement created in protest at the restrictions on art in the Austro-Hungarian empire

Coming up roses

I had expected to be posting about my entry for the Politics of Fashion today, but then Life had other ideas, and generally got in the way. So instead I’m posting about one specific part of the project, and sharing some of the lovely images I came across in the process of my ‘research’ (aka spending ages on Pinterest and trying not to drool on the keyboard!)

The dress I am making is trimmed with small fabric roses. Not embroidered roses like these.

Liberty 'Aesthetic' dress, August Auctions

And not a single, large, dramatic rose like this.

Nordic Museums, 1914

Or this (not actually a rose, but you get the idea).

Couldn't find any details for this one

Or multiple, large, dramatic roses like these.

Les Modes (Paris) 1910, Robe de Diner by Zimmermann

What I am after is more something like the roses on this.

Paul Poiret, 1910

Rose detail

Three dimensional fabric flowers were clearly very popular in the early twentieth century. I can’t quite make out how the flowers on this dress are constructed, but it’s clear that they stand out slightly from the dress itself.

Another purple and cream dress with no information!

Quite often the flowers are created from ribbons, a technique still used today.

Lucile, 1912, Whitaker Auction

Bodice detail

Skirt detail

However I have no idea how these roses were created, with their turned back petals.

Edwardian dress, detail

Fabric flowers were still appearing in the 1920s, as seen on this example from All The Pretty Dresses.

1920s dress, detail

And they weren’t confined to dresses either. This evening bag is high on my Want To Make list.

Evening bag, early to mid-20th century, found by The Dreamstress

Eventually I decided that I really needed to turn my attention to how to actually make fabric roses, and found several tutorials online. First up was Julie Bowersett’s blog, From These Hands. As the instructions were from vintage flower making books written around the turn of the twentieth century, this looked hopeful.

The flowers are made from squares of fabric folded in half diagonally, then gathered round the edges to form petals, which are then stitched together. I must admit that I made this up quite quickly, and the satin I need to use for the dress probably wasn’t the best fabric to start with. The end result is pretty (a combination of flash photography and shiny fabric really doesn’t do it justice), but looser than the style I’m after.

Petals gathered and ungathered, and the rose in progress

The completed rose

Next I found A Gilded Life. The roses in this tutorial are made by rolling and twisting a strip of fabric which has been folded lengthways. The problem with this is that the raw edges of the strip will sometimes show, which is fine for a modern look and/or fabrics which don’t fray much, but not for a period look in satin.

Finally I came across Stacy Vaughn’s blog. This tutorial was similar to the one on A Gilded Life, but the fabric strips were sewn into tubes first. No raw edges! And her example was made from satin! I wasn’t sure if I should press the tube once it had been turned right side out, but there was no mention of doing so. In the end I found that it was best not to press it, as the slight indentation at the seam added more depth to the ‘petals’. I used a strip 4.5cm / 1¾“ wide by75cm / 29½“ long, with a 3mm / ⅛” seam, and the end result was just what I was after.

Fabric strip, and the rose in progress

The completed rose

The tube method creates a flatter, more compact rose

Now all I have to do is make 5 more the same!