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This was my first attempt ever at historical costume - well, the corset came first, but that's part of the same project. Let me say it right at the start : It's awful. I didn't want to show it at first, but then I said hey, everyone has to start somewhere, and it's a nice reminder of how far I've got since then.
So here is a pic of the front, one of the side, and of the back.
The pattern is based on one from Arnold again, the 1770-75 sack with compere on p. 34. I didn't want any 70s, nor did I want a compere: I had Mme Pompadour in mind, i.e. mid-50s to early 60s, so I made a stomacher instead of the compere. The overall shape seemed OK for the period.
As it was to be experimental, I chose a cheap viscose fabric that looked a bit period if you were short-sighted and standing on the other side of the road in a light mist. Cheap non-plastic solids were not to be had at the time. I hadn't done enough research yet to know that jupe and robe are hardly ever made in a contrasting fabric, so it was solid lemon yellow for the jupe. The lace engageantes, which are very un-period-ly sewn into the sleeves, would make even a modern courtain cringe.
The big challenge, apart from fitting, were the Watteau pleats. As the fabric is striped, I had to make them hang very straight while at the same time trying to stick to the pattern - sewing pattern, not fabric pattern. The former I've given up by now as unimportant and counter-productive, the latter is all that matters when laying the pleats.
As I'd never inspected a surviving garment, I was also at a loss as to how the side pleats and pocket slits were to be made. I just stuck to the pattern and managed to get it halfway right. The same went for the hemline (no train).
The jupe was made using my standard procedure: knife pleats onto a waistband long enough to tie; centre back seam partially open and not much neatened at the top. Under it went a pair of pocket hoops following a Hunnisett pattern, stiffened with plastic boning. As the fabric has to be gathered a bit over the upper bones, it was necessary to prevent it from slipping off the bones. Hunnisett didn't say a word about it, but I figured I would have to fix the ends of the bones to the ends of the tunnels they were in to prevent that. I heated an etching needle over a candle flame and melted a hole into the end of each bone through which I then sewed it to the fabric.
Next was the question of filling the front opening. I rejected the compere as belonging to a later period, so I needed a stomacher. But I had no idea then what a stomacher looks like. What I made was a wide triangle of the same fabric as the corset, with bones in and covered in the jupe fabric. On hindsight, it is too triangular, soo wide at the tops and the neckline edge too curved. And of course I shouldn't have used hooks and eyes to fasten it to the robe. Actually I even sewed it to one front edge and used hooks and eyes on the other. *blush*
The trimmings I made of straight-grain strips of the fabric, cut with pinking shears, then pleated while hand-sewing them to the dress. I had to take the broad ruffle on the jupe off again when I realised that, being sewn on parallel to the not yet finished hemline, it would not be horizontal as soon as the jupe was worn over a panier - I sewed it back on after the hemline was determined. Determining the hemline was deifficult as the pocket hoops wouldn't hang properly on the stand: They need a thigh to rest against, so as the stand has none, they droop like wet cotton balls. I had to call on Mum to pin the hem while I was wearing the dress. Fitting a jupe over a proper, crinoline-like panier (i.e. a full skirt with boning in) is fine on a stand, but never over pocket hoops.
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