18th century stays and robe à la française ideas

[aimeekitty]

So after I finish my steampunk outfit, I'm going to work on my 18th century stays. I think I'm going to make them pale blue and hopefully add a little bit of embroidery down one of the front panels. Isn't this set of stays GORGEOUS, though?

The whole point of that, besides randomly running around with stays and petticoats on,... is so that I can make a robe à la française. I've always wanted to have one since I was a little girl. I'm not going to make a replica of a particular gown, I'm simply going to pick my favorite color fabric and then embellish it however I like. (translation: cover it with gathered fabric and ribbon roses)
(notice that apparently it takes about 4 years for me to forget how much I hate making ballgowns... but oh how I love them.)

I loved the colors used in the Marie Antionette movie. My favorite MA gown colors are these two. (not nessesarily the gown STYLE but the gown colors)
Which color do you think I should do? The slightly aqua blue, or the pink? :) I love both almost equally.
I'm going to make a separate deep red gown, but I can't decide on my "other gown" color.
I might do a white-ish wig, so my hair color is not too much of a determining factor.


I went back through my Rose of Versailles pics and I still really like this one:


a couple rough sketches of embellishment ideas


and then some of my favorite painting dresses

Comments

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

I want a robe a la francaise so badly too!! Can't wait to see what you do with yours! I think pink or blue would both be great - but I think you should go pink since you love it so much and I think pink would look great on you.

For stays, I highly recommend the Diderot stays pattern from Corsets & Crinolines.

I have a blown up pattern from it that I'd be happy to pass on to you. You'd have to size it for yourself, but it was easy to tweak. I haven't tried the JP Ryan pattern, but I think I have had friends that have had good luck with it! :-)