I remade my 1780s gown! From an 18th century italian gown to a zone front

Hello and welcome. I'm Maria from Sew Through Time and this week I want to revisit my 1780s Italian gown that I made back in 2019 and it was my first ever fully hand-sewn gown and my second historical gown. I made it using the American Duchess Guide to 18th century for the basic shapes of the gown but even though I loved it and I had done quite a lot of research by the time I made this because I tend to get obsessed with things and I had very much gotten obsessed with 18th century silhouette and tried to study as much about it as I could. But my main problem was that my stays weren't very good. I had made them using the reconstruction history pattern that is notoriously horrible. The main problem was that not only did I use coteil and I also used some steel boning in it but also I didn't really understand how to give myself the proper bust room. So it kind of tends to really squish everything down at the front. Not only is it not a prow shape like in the 1780s usually are but on top of that it just doesn't give me a very good conical shape either. It just makes me kind of straight and I mean it wasn't it isn't horrible. It could have been worse but you can see on the gown that there is fit issues because of this. You can see weird wrinkling at the bust line and that is because of those badly made badly fitting stays. On top of this fit issue with the stays I also made the decision to make the neckline a little bit higher than usually is made in the 18th century. There's a reason why they usually make the neckline quite low. First of all because your breast tissue even though it does puff out at the top for most people at least some it is not anymore as rounded and because there isn't any darts there aren't any prinset seams nothing to shape it. After you get past the apex and that is usually created by the stays also there really isn't anything to support the fabric and it just tends to collapse on me because the stays were shaped like they were. It didn't really collapse that much but you can see that it makes weird wrinkles there and also because of this I had absolutely nothing to pin it on to because my stays didn't come that high. There was about that much of you know just empty space so I had a really hard time pinning the gown on straight and you can see in the pictures of me wearing it at the ball that it tends to buckle weirdly and that is because I had so much trouble pinning it on because of that extra fabric at the top. Now I knew already at this point that the extra fabric at the top is not historically accurate and I do not personally have any modesty reasons for doing this. I did this simply because this was my first historical event. I was very worried about I've had issues in the past in previous hobbies and other things that because of my larger chest size especially other women sometimes react to me showing flesh as I'm being overly showy and tend to not respond well. So I was attempting to avoid this because I was afraid that maybe the other costumers didn't do that maybe they didn't show as much flesh that how would they react would I have a hard time meeting people and would I immediately cause an adverse reaction. Of course that was just my fear talking and luckily it was fine and when I went to the event I realized that it would have been fine lower but I did have a great time at the ball. I really enjoyed the gown and I especially love the back of this gown. I am really proud of myself for getting that fit and I really enjoy this and I kind of always wished that I could wear it again and then well when I made my new stays it didn't work and then on top of that I lost a bunch of weight and the way I lost that weight was that I lost a lot on my waist. So this gown was huge on my waist I couldn't close it on my chest with proper fitting stays and there was just no way of me ever using this again. So instead of reselling this what was also an option that I considered I decided to just remake this. Remaking gowns was a very common practice in the 18th century. Not only would they re-trim fabric to make it you know more fashionable as the fashions changed but they would also rework gowns whether the woman changed in body weight whether it was up or down or just fashions changed. In the 18th century labor was cheap but fabric was very expensive and especially silk. It wouldn't have been something that would have been totally out of the reach for say a middling sort or middle class person but it would have been expensive. It would not be something that she would want to waste or even an upper class person would have wanted to waste. So they would remake them and have their mantua makers and milliners remake them and refashion them. Let me go in a little bit into the history in this before I go into actual gown making. In the 18th century the terms mantua maker means the person who makes the women's gowns. Then there's a tailor that is usually making men's garments but also tailored women's garments like riding habits and riding goats in the 1780s when those became fashionable and often stays. Mantua makers would mostly drape on the body and work on the body kind of sewing and make dresses. The name mantua maker comes from the 17th century century mantua gown that was a new draped gown and this became a largely women-dominated trade. And then there is the milliner. Not only does a milliner make hats but also the trimming of the gowns is a part of her work. So the mantua maker would make the basis of the gown, the basic shape and all that and then when it is just a plain gown it would be taken over to the milliner who would then trim at the gown and then there you would buy any ribbons, caps, hats, any frillies that go along with it. Milliners would often also alter gowns a little bit when they were refashioned but also mantua makers did this. That was kind of where the two trades kind of mixed. Now as for this gown because the back was fitting me still perfectly fine and the sleeves were fine all of that rest was fine. It was just the front especially the bust area that I could not close and the waist that was huge. So I decided to make myself make my life easier and basically do what a mantua maker would have done and refashion it. This gown the basic Italian gown was very common in the early part of the 1780s. It still did exist in the later part of the 1780s but it was more common to see more variation on the gown and especially in daytime wear very common things were to play around with it and mix it with other styles and one of these different variations that happened to the Italian gown was that often the front would be cut off out and create a kind of zone front. It could be either worn with a false stomacher or a waistcoat or just it could have a piece of fabric sewn in. It could be the same fabric or it could be a different fabric. Now these gowns could be cut either at a straight V or they could have like a different a little part where it connects in the middle. This was especially common in gowns where it was worn with a separate false stomacher or waistcoat. I thought that this is something that an 18th century milliner or mantua maker would have also thought of doing because it's an easy change. All you have to do basically is cut out that excess fabric that is at the waist and cut the waist just completely off and then just add a little bit at the bust to make it be able to connect again. I cut the bust extension piece from the old waist piece. All the raw edges are sandwiched between the fashion fabric and the lining and then the edges are hemmed in place. To transition smoothly from the old neckline to the new lower neckline, I cut a little bit of the old stitches so that I could turn it in nicely and neatly so that there was no visible line and then continued hemming it. The bottom edge of the bodice is then prick stitched from the right side. A prick stitch is essentially a back stitch with a tiny stitch on the fashion fabric side and a larger one on the underside. The bust extension piece is then hemmed on, making sure to catch both the fashion fabric and the lining. Okay, so here is the lining from a well-fitting Italian gown. So I'm going to use this and kind of trace the pattern for the stomacher onto here. The stomacher is hemmed at all sides. And here it is, the new and improved late 1780s Italian gown. Ignore the fact that the stomacher is puckering a bit. It's because I pinged it on and at the parking lot and, well, without a mirror at a parking lot, that's not a good idea. I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe if you haven't done that already so that I can see you again next time. Bye!