My next project has to be done by late April! It’s a pink floral Robe à l’Anglaise (a la polonaise). I’m going to use JPRyan’s pattern (View A). I actually bought the beautiful hand painted fabric for it in 2009 (below). I also have beautiful custom dyed “Georgiana” silk shoes to match from American Duchess that have never been worn. That’s quite a bit sad. So you can say this is another “been in the works for a while” costume!
Here’s a few of my inspiration gowns. The Pink robe a la franchise is from Augusta Auction and the cream and green Polonaise is from the V&A museum.
First things first, though, I needed a new set of stays. My older stays were an earlier 18th century period (also JPRyan pattern) but I just don’t like the shape they give me, so I decided to give the later half-boned stays a try. And what better way to use up some of the beautiful silk I got in Beijing?
I really wasn’t happy with the available bindings, so I had to make my own (so tedious…) Here you can see me slowly pinning the binding to the top of the stays. I think I might end up hand stitching it, which I normally don’t do, just because I want it to look extra pretty. We’ll see. I don’t have that much time.
