Notes on draping a gown a l’Anglaise
By Mara Riley
Copyright 2003

18th Century gowns are always worn over stays, which give one’s figure the correct “ice cream cone” shape.  If you are draping your gown on a dressmaker’s dummy, or having a friend drape it to you, make sure you (or your dummy) are wearing your stays for the fittings.  A 19th century corset gives an “hourglass” rather than “ice cream cone” shape, and should not be used as the foundation for draping 18th century clothing.

Fabrics: Silk (taffeta is a good choice; if one can find a period-looking damask or brocade, those will work too); linen, wool, or linsey-woolsey.  

Thread: If using silk, use silk thread in a color as close to matching your fabric as possible.  If the gown is linen, use white or natural linen thread.  If using wool, either linen or silk thread can be used.

Draping the lining
Unlike modern dresses, the inside lining of the gown is constructed first, using strong linen, either bleached or natural (greige).  The gown is then built, or ‘draped,’ onto the lining.

Pin the fabric to the stays and cut it to the proper shape (see cutting diagrams for the right shapes); pencil in the outlines of the bodice lining with tailor’s chalk or a lead pencil.  You should leave a little extra fabric around the edges of each piece so you can adjust them as necessary.  

When the pieces are roughed out, unpin them and make sure the pieces are the same shape for the right and left sides, with adjustments as necessary for the figure anomalies that most of us have, such as having one shoulder or one hip lower than the other.

The lining is in four pieces, two in front and two in back. Note that the center back seam curves in at the small of the back, and that the side seams are actually at the side-back, not the exact side, of the torso.  

The back waistline should follow a pleasing curve angled from the waistline down toward the center pleats.  

The front waistline should drop from the side waistline to a point at the center front.  

Gowns in the middle of the century have a long waist, a little below the natural waistline; waistlines then follow a rising trend until the end of the century.

Late 18th c. gowns may have some boning; if the back of the gown is boned, then the back of the stays can be lightly boned.  The boning is inserted into the bodice lining so that the casings are between the lining and the outside material, not inserted into separate casings on the interior of the bodice (a 19th c. technique).

Draping the back pleats
Sew and press the back, shoulder and side-back seams of the lining.  Put the lining onto the figure being draped.

Pin the back center panel of the outer fabric to the bodice lining along the center back lining seam.  

Arrange the pleats (see period pictures and diagrams) and pin, then baste into place.  Take the dress off the form or person being draped and stitch into place using a running stitch or back stitch placed every ¼” or so, with only a tiny bit of the stitch showing on the top of the fold.

Pleats are wider at the beginning of the century, getting narrower toward the end.

The center back pleat is a box pleat, with the edges pointing inward; then there are two pleats pointing outward (see diagrams).

Cut the extra material of the back on either side of the pleated section at an angle from the edge of the material (at the natural waistline) to the edge of the pleats (a little below the waistline) and baste to the lining.

Baste the front bodice (you can rough out the shape based on the lining shape) to the lining along the neckline, armholes, bottom, and side/back seams.  You might want to do a final fitting at this point, especially if you’re draping the gown on a dress form, adjusting the fit along the side-back seams.  Lap the front of the bodice over the back bodice at the side seams and whipstitch or backstitch in place.  

If you are making a gown that has robings in front, arrange and lightly stitch the front bodice pleats into position onto the lining.  When you’ve got them pleated to your satisfaction, stitch them in place using a running or backstitch.  Sometimes the stitching is done underneath the robings so it doesn’t show; sometimes the robings are topstitched so that the stitches show.

Once the sleeves are sewn on (see below) and the front robings (if any) are arranged and sewn over the sleeve tops, the back neckline is covered by a narrow strip of material placed across the pleating and then mitered at the ends.

Arrange the front and back petticoats into pleats, stay-stitch, then pin to the bodice; turn the top edge of the petticoats under, and stitch (at the fold) to the bodice.

 
Sleeves
Sleeves were usually cut on the horizontal grain until the 1780s.  This means that stripes go across the arm, not down it.

Sew the sleeve lining in place.
Sew the sleeves to the dress from the inside as far as the head of the sleeve using backstitch (for strength).  If your gown has robings, leave the head (top) of the sleeve raw, and arrange it in small pleats onto the outside of the lining at the top of the shoulders.  The raw edges of the sleeve are then covered by the front robings, which come over the shoulder to join with the outside back pleat to give the illusion of one continuous pleat coming over the shoulder. 

In gowns that do not have robings, sew the sleeves in from the inside all  the way around.

Cuffs
Cuffs at the middle of the century were usually some kind of wide cuff with one or more horizontal pleats or a winged cuff (hanging cuff, narrow at the top, hanging a few inches below the arm).  Toward the end of the century you see hanging ruffles and other arrangements.  Sometimes cuffs contained a lead weight to give them the proper drape.

Skirts (the bottom half of the gown)
Skirts can either be closed (called a ‘round gown’) or open in front. Closed robes were less common in the second half of the century. The closed robe has the waistline of the front skirt panel pleated to a waistband to which tapes (ties) are attached; these are then tied behind the back as one would tie on an apron. Then the back part of the gown is put on, and laced or pinned shut. Open-fronted gowns were often worn over matching petticoats, though non-matching petticoats seem to have been common as well.  Quilted petticoats were another popular option.

Pleats on earlier gowns, which were made of stiffer silks, tend to be wide – about 1”.   As thinner silks come into vogue (1780s), pleats get narrower. Pleats usually point from the front toward the center back.

The skirts of gowns are not lined.  When the gown opens in front, the front edges are cut with an extra four to six inches, which are turned back to the inside of the gown to make facings.  

Sew the side seams of the skirts together, leaving about 7” to 8” open at the top for pocket openings.

Make the skirts about ankle length then hem them along the straight grain. 

Put the gown on the dress form or figure being draped and arrange the skirt in pleats (over hip pads, a bumroll, or hoops, if worn) and pin them to the bodice so that the hem is an even distance from the floor.  If one is using a bumroll or hoops, this means that the skirt should be a bit longer at the sides where it comes over the bumroll or hoops than at the back and front.

Once the skirts are pleated, then the raw edge on top is turned under (1”-2”) and whip-stitched to the bodice.

Hems
Several treatments can be used. 
-	narrowly turned under (usually not more than 1”, often less)
-	faced with a strip of silk or other fabric (such as linen) 4-12” wide
-	turned up, and wool tape applied with a running stitch along both edges of the tape

Robings and Facings
You can have either one or two robing folds on the front bodice, two being more common.

There is one gown in Bradfield’s Costume in Detail (pp. 3-4) which appears to be constructed with the robings separate from the bodice front.

Contrasting robings and cuffs seem to be a middle and lower class fashion.  They are not usually seen in upper class portraits.  A wool gown might have calico (i.e, cotton) or silk robings and cuffs.

Flounces start appearing around 1760?.
“Flounces were pleated, not gathered.  The edges of flounces made from the early stiff silks have a narrow hem and are edged with braid; later silks have these edges pinked.”  (Waugh, p. 76)

Fastenings
Most gowns seem to have been pinned or basted on, or sometimes laced.  If the gown has lacing holes, the holes are usually let into the bodice lining and are concealed behind the gown’s robings (in the example on pp. 17-18 in Bradfield, the robings are applied separately).

If wearing a gown with robings, pin the stomacher to your stays, then pin or baste the gown to the stomacher, or lace the gown over the stomacher.

If your gown fastens edge-to-edge, you can either baste yourself into it or use straight pins to pin the gown shut.  Some reenactors use a hook-and-eye fastening in the lining, then baste or pin the outer layer of the gown together.

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Sources:
Barnwell, Susan and Holford, Mary: Pattern Diagrams for Three Eighteenth-Century Dresses in the Royal Ontario Museum
Waugh, Norah: The Cut of Women’s Clothes
Various posts in the 18thCWomen archives