A Dedicated Follower of Fashion: 1790s accessories

This past weekend, I attended a Pumpkin Tea that a costumer friend hosts (and has hosted for ten years as of this one! I haven't made them all but every one I've been to has been excellent). It's always good food, good friends, and good fun! It's "Regency" themed - 1790s to about 1820. Every other time I've attended, I've actually worn some variation of the same outfit...my Pompom Outfit. Which I still like very much but am fairly tired of wearing places by now!

I've always found Jen's 1790s dresses very inspiring - mid-1790s especially are so distinctive and ridiculous! You might remember that I made the white round gown earlier this year (and photographed it very badly!) but never finished the open robe I wanted to go over it as my planned picnic got rained out. Well, the open robe still seemed like too much work, but a couple accessories would spruce up said round gown for an event, right?

Definitely!

I didn't exactly copy any one fashion plate, but drew a lot of inspiration from the bonnet board I linked above. The hat I'd already made for the rained-out picnic, so I wanted to do something that would be a fun contrast with the green. I really wanted a yellow mantle, as there are a couple of plates with yellow and green accessories that I thought were very fun - but I decided I wasn't allowed to buy fabric for this, so an orange silk shantung in the stash did very well too.

I had some more of the green taffeta I used for the band and bow on the hat, so I used that for the sash. The scarf on the hat is an especially silly 1790s feature that you see quite often - mine's green chiffon. And the feathers are a couple of ostrich drabs that I trimmed down a bit.

I think the mantle came out very spiff, but I almost gave up on it halfway through. So tired of pleats!!! It's all hand sewn, so took me the better part of two weeks, mainly because I kept putting it down and going "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" The ruffle is just a simple strip of fabric (folded in half so I didn't have to actually hem the edge...I never would have finished it if I did. The raw edges are sewn into a flat-felled seam, so they don't fray. This shantung is very fray-y) box-pleated to the body of the mantle. The mantle itself is two widths of 54" silk that I shaped slightly...so I think it ended up being 13 widths of silk pleated up for the trim. Can you understand why I got tired of pleating? ;)

Rough cutout of the mantle. I did end up rounding the edges a little more.

The gloves were fun...the first pair I bought ended up not working at all in terms of length, so I ordered another pair from ebay and crossed my fingers they'd get here in time! Barely! They showed up in my mailbox Thursday afternoon for an event I was leaving Friday night for, and I had to squeeze in time to dye them! Squeaked by, there

Yes, dyed - very hard to find green gloves in that color and length, you know. White leather vintage gloves on ebay, though? Easy peasy. They didn't end up particularly even - in person the color is pretty mottled, but they look okay in pictures I think!

My hair was sort of funny - I had an unstyled curly wig laying around for ages that I'd planned to turn into 1790s hair, and I gave it a trim and a recurl a few days before the event. And managed to turn it into a Louis XIV wig. (Or maybe '80s Cher.) Either way...no. Less perm-y wig next time, thanks. So I curled the lower part of my own hair and plopped my small "hedgehog" wig on top. Worked pretty well, especially with a hat on top!