Waistlines: Greek Revival in the English Regency (time travel)

Lady Selina Meade
Painted by Lawrence

Continuing thoughts on designing and sewing waistlines

Dramatic changes in society

An artful focus on music, poetry, and classic Greek lines

High-waisted frocks...

A little English Regency time travel is always in order.

What time travel method would carry us back to the days of Jane Austen, The Peninsular War,  Beau Brummell, and his well-fleshed friend The Prince Regent ?  A little fiddling with something neoclassical maybe... A bust of Socrates? An enameled snuffbox, perhaps? Or better yet,  a high perch phaeton, driven by a dashing female!

The Perfect Time Travel Method
back to the English Regency

Such changes in ladies fashion in this early part of the nineteenth century! One older dame complains, "I'd look fine with my skirt up under my armpits like you young gels!" 

No more immensely stiff, mid-waisted, Georgian skirts in weighty brocades. The Empress Josephine's doing it across the channel in France, so why not here? It's floaty, airy high waisted gowns these days. 

So drape your lightest muslins up just under the bust line and come along with me. 

Creating a fairy-like, neoclassic inspired frock for a time travel trip like this is the sort of thing that keeps me.... 

Enchanted by Sewing

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Regency Resources

Georgette Heyer was the spark that lit the craze for Regency Romance fiction and did that lady ever know her era! She had collections of the ladies journals that her heroines read, and her stories include every elaborate detail of the toilettes of the day. To step into a Georgette Heyer novel is to step into romantic adventure, complete to a shade (as one of her books denizens would have proclaimed) with the beautiful fashions of the day.

Waistlines: A Little Old-Time Revival (Greek Influence on Fashion)

Give me that old-time revival style!

Greek Revival that is....

As all of us time travelin' sewists know.... women just never seem to get enough of that high-waisted Greek look.

The ladies of ancient Grecian times are well known for draping their Doric chitons so that the weight of the primary fabric folds hung from just below the bust, though you'll find other waistline draping effects on Greek artifacts as well (including the no-waistline look ). Their counterparts in other ancient lands may well have draped their frocks in similar styles, but when it comes to these Mediterranean islands we have access to the detritus of their civilization to paw through, and other places - not so much. Relicts of Greek culture have made their way into modern museums, and that gives us an opportunity to window shop through these styles, and pickup a few pointers when it comes to draping and styling fluid high-waisted dresses and tunics.

An appreciation for all things classically Greek inspired people of many eras to try out democracy, create public buildings with columns, and get down with getting philosophical. It has also led ladies of many succeeding historical periods to pull up their waistlines and let their fabric of their dresses flow smoothly and fluidly from just beneath a fitted bosom. What's not to like about a waistline that avoids your waist? 

This classical raised waist image from ancient times, meant that Renaissance ladies like Madonna Lucrezia Borgia, Intimates of Marie Antoinette at  Le Petit Trianon, Napoleon's Josephine, Jane Austen's heroines, Vionnet's put-away-those-corsets Parisian beauties, and Betsey Johnson's 1970's Alley Cat pattern sewists, could shed their corsets and girdles, breathe a little easier, and get comfortable when they pulled a high-waisted frock out of the wardrobe.

We're still sewing 'em today!

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Feeling Like A Little Greek Inspiration?

Hot Pattern's Trudy, has designed a great top and dress pattern, the Metropolitan Verano Dress that is strongly reminiscent of an updated Greek chiton.


 

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  Resources

Waistlines: The No-Waistline Look http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2013/11/waistlines-designing-without-no.html

I love using layers in Photoshop! Usually I create my illustrations from my own art work, but it's also fun to incorporate other people's creations as well. In my Greek Revival illustration above I borrowed and incorporated the following free downloads...

http://openclipart.org/detail/181828/rhodes-cerf---rhodes-deer-by-waielbi-181828

http://openclipart.org/detail/22619/chiton-(clothing)-by-warszawianka


heborgias.wikifoundry.com/page/Italy+-+Famous+Renaissance+Women

Podcast Togetherness: Mother-Daughter Sewing ( Ench By Sew-008 )

Hey, the May 2013 "Enchanted By Sewing" Podcast is available in the pod-o-sphere!

Why so early this month?

We Want to be on Time for Mother's
- or is that Daughter's? -
 Day!

You can listen to the show right on the web by clicking on this link. Or, download this podcast free from iTunes, to play on your favorite mobile device/mp3 player (like an iPhone or an Android), by clicking on this link to iTunes.

~~~

• This podcast episode is dedicated to Lori Van Monan, a mother who has influenced my sewing, blogging and podcasting tremendously. Lori is the creator and producer of the long time Sew Forth Now Podcast, as well as the Girls in the Garden Blog, which she continues to host. Lori  (who recently became a grandmother !) continues to sew for her four daughters, who are now young women. She also often shares ways that her mother and grandmother influenced her sewing. Thanks again for sew much inspiration Lori!

Daughter Kristen and her mother Tammy
are sewing cohorts and classmates
in the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

In celebration of Mother’s Day… Laurel reflects on her own experiences with mother-daughter sewing. She also finds out that this relationship doesn’t always fit into a traditional pattern. This conversation with sewing cohorts, who happen to be related, may surprise you as much as it did the show hostess.

   

• In this month's podcast I spoke with daughter Kristen, and her mother Tammy in the  Cañada Fashion Sewing Program lab. In the illustration on the left, Kristen is wearing the dress she sewed for class, that we talk about in the 'cast. Below you'll find the alteration Kristen made to the sleeves she wasn't happy with.

•  Kristen is a died-in-wool Romantic, like me. You'll hear us talking about this Romance of Hats book just before our official interview time began. Kristen and I both took the millinery class on campus through the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

The romance of hats / the editors of Victoria magazine ; foreword by Nancy Lindemeyer. http://catalog.plsinfo.org/search~S1/?searchtype=Y&searcharg=millinery+victoria&searchscope=1&sortdropdown=-&SORT=DZ&extended=0&SUBMIT=Search&searchlimits=&searchorigarg=Ymillinery+hat%26SORT%3DDZ

–       

Updated sleeves Kristen created for
her purple dress

Stone Mountain and Daughter is a fabric store in Berkley,  is a favorite of many in the Cañada Fashion Sewing Program

o   Tammy is a fan of Katie R. who works there and has helped this new sewer feel confident about choosing fabrics

o   Kristen likes the cotton sateen sold at Stone Mountain and Daughter

-       Tammy is sewing Kwik Sew pattern, hoodie style 3693

o   http://sewing.patternreview.com/patterns/29811

o   “Easy and great for beginners”   http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/66379

Yes! I admit that I bought this pattern from Pattern Review, after hearing about Tammy's plans!!

-         Sewing Velvet

o   Woops, Laurel, when it comes to pressing velvet,  it's a nail BOARD not a nail brush!

• Tammy and Laurel are both into crinkly/ruffled knits

Laurel's Fashion Forward Mermaid Tee
This is the kind of fabric Tammy and I were talking about
sharing a liking for

* This "Bisou Stretch Mini Ruffle Knit" (the link below is for Fabric.Com) is one of the styles of ruffled fabric Tammy and I were talking about. I bought my mint-green version at Stone Mountain and Daughter, and made my "Fashion Forward Mermaid" tee shirt  (above) with it, using a deconstructed (non-finished edge) at the neckline and sleeve edges. (Sorry I can't find a link for this fabric there. If you can find it there- or at some other favorite source- feel free to post a link)

http://www.fabric.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=1958a8df-d243-4199-a706-f422e4357168

This Morton Salt Girl's dress, may well have been Mama's inspiration for my own butter yellow outfit as a kid.