Tuesday, May 17, 2011

18th century toile

I don't think I'm going to get any modern tailoring this season. No wait, I think I have a set of plus fours and a 1930's tennis jacket and white flannels to do when the fabric arrives.
In the meantime......
The next assignment harkens further back in time to the mid 18th century, and since our designer was coming in from afar this week, I had to switch gears and get together a toile fitting to get an idea of where we are heading for shape and fit.
This wasn't too bad a start, I had never made anything for Mr. J seen here. He is quite tall - about 6'4" and has a 10" chest to waist drop, (a challenge) so it was a good first fit. I have to shorten the coat and change the waistcoat a bit and deal with a few more fit issues especially on his right side (DRS) before I will chop into the real fabric. Then I need to add a lot more volume in the pleating and will have to figure out what kind of interlining I will need to use to get the coat to bell out through the skirts.

That's for a bit later in the month, so all I can do for now is make some notes, hang it up and get back to the current lot of work.

4 comments:

  1. What about using a horse hair braid around the hem?

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  2. Yes, that is a possibility that I was thinking of. I am waiting to see what the fabric will be because the whole coat will likely need support anyway, so we'll see.

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  3. Hey Terri,

    Are you cheating a bit by adding a underarm side panel? Why would you need this for a slender man as he is?

    For the pleats, I put in springy chest canvas at the top, two layers, two directions, to work around the change of grainline. I also learned to sew the pleats all together and force them to stand in a right angle to the body, rather than folding the front pleats towards the front and the back pleats towards the back. That works quite well to make the skirt pop out.

    Cheers

    David (CJ from C&T)

    PS: never commented before - I really like your blog and the time you take to document things. In our profession, finding that time is a hard thing...

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  4. Yes, i have a side panel :)
    I started doing that a while ago with a designer who wanted these coats to fit differently than the true period fit.
    Setting the pleats at right angles to the body does make them pop out you are right.
    I was thinking about the interlining option, but I am still waiting to see yardage so i can decide what to use.

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