But then the sloping shoulders and bustle shape of the Queen of Clubs in the right of this picture is all late 1860s/1870s Victorian:

But surely the square neckline plus frill of this number worn by the Queen of Hearts is more 1880s? Anyway, after a bit of strategic googling I came across the website of the Randolph Caldecott Society:

Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) transformed the world of children's books in the Victorian era. Children eagerly awaited the two books illustrated by him, priced at a shilling each, which came out each Christmas for eight years.

Novel Fancy Costume A very novel fancy costume, worn by a lady of rank at a late entertainment abroad, is a white satin, having a cuirasse waist embroidered to represent the figure cards of a pack. The groteque figures in vivid black, red and yellow, were outlined in chenille, and filled in with floss, made more brilliant with gold thread. The deep basque thus appeared attached to a deeper draping, while the sleeves, a mere band near the shoulder, had a repetition of the same embroidery, but much narrower. A long train was divided into sections, black, red and white, similarly embroidered. The headdress was the utterly indescribable gear which decorates "the Queen of Hearts", while the jewelry was of consistent eccentricity in style and mounting. The general effect is said to have been excellent. The wearer was a brilliant brunette.

Although the general effect was said to be excellent, do you get the tiniest impression that the writer thought the costume was all very eccentric and a little bit over the top? If I was going to go to a fancy dress party as the Queen of Hearts, I think I'd go as the Queen of Hearts depicted in this painting by Percy Gossop, done in 1901: Isn't that gorgeous? Look at the sleeves! And the heart shaped backplate which her hair loops through!]]>

I came across a copy of an old, old children’s picture book the other day, The Queen of Hearts. The only text in it is the Children’s nursery rhyme, but the Randolph Caldecott pictures are just lovely, and, as you know, I love book illustrations with fashion interest.

Intriguingly enough, the book has no publication date in it. So what’s a reader to do but try and date it from the women’s fashion (fantastical fashion though it may be?)

What do you think? The high waistline of this flowing number I had down as a post-Edwardian circa 1912-ish does Pre-raphaelite:

But then the sloping shoulders and skirt shape of the Queen of Clubs in the right of this picture is all late 1860s/1870s Victorian:

But surely the square neckline plus frill of this number worn by the Queen of Hearts is more 1880s?

Anyway, after a bit of strategic googling I came across the website of the Randolph Caldecott Society:

Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) transformed the world of children’s books in the Victorian era. Children eagerly awaited the two books illustrated by him, priced at a shilling each, which came out each Christmas for eight years.

It gives the original publication date of the Queen of Hearts at 1881. (Although my edition is apparently a later one, although the pictures wouldn’t have changed).

While I’m on the subject, I remember reading something Victorian about a similar Queen of Hearts costume. Um. Excuse me while I just google frantically. Ah yes. It’s from the Costumer’s Manifesto, a scan of a copy of Demorest’s magazine for 1879:

Novel Fancy Costume
A very novel fancy costume, worn by a lady of rank at a late entertainment abroad, is a white satin, having a cuirasse waist embroidered to represent the figure cards of a pack. The groteque figures in vivid black, red and yellow, were outlined in chenille, and filled in with floss, made more brilliant with gold thread. The deep basque thus appeared attached to a deeper draping, while the sleeves, a mere band near the shoulder, had a repetition of the same embroidery, but much narrower. A long train was divided into sections, black, red and white, similarly embroidered. The headdress was the utterly indescribable gear which decorates “the Queen of Hearts”, while the jewelry was of consistent eccentricity in style and mounting. The general effect is said to have been excellent. The wearer was a brilliant brunette.

Although the general effect was said to be excellent, do you get the tiniest impression that the writer thought the costume was all very eccentric and a little bit over the top? If I was going to go to a fancy dress party as the Queen of Hearts, I think I’d go as the Queen of Hearts depicted in this painting by Percy Gossop, done in 1901:

Isn’t that gorgeous? Look at the sleeves! And the heart shaped backplate which her hair loops through!

The parcel is from Trim Fabric (an online store I've never shopped at before, but I would again- this was dispatched the day after I ordered its contents). Inside was a mixture of sensible fabric and wild card fabric designed to jangle the old optic nerves. The sensible fabric is a yard of a linen cotton mix jersey in navy blue. It's so sensible it's hardly worth me showing you a pic, but in the interests of thoroughness here it is on the right. Well, there we go.

The coat is itself probably a post for another day, so let's look at what went underneath.

The white linen shirt is made from a pattern from The Recollections of J.P. Ryan, a pattern company that specialises in the Georgian Era. The shirt went together incredibly easily and quickly, being mostly lots of large squares and rectangles, with the shaping achieved with gathering, and square gussets under the arms and triangular gussets at the neck. It was much larger and longer than a modern shirt, as was the style in the 18th Century, with full dropped shoulder sleeves: It was a good well drafted pattern, but I couldn't figure how on earth to attach two strips across each shoulder (a bit like sewn down epaulettes). These would apparently have reinforced the shoulder, in the absence of a shoulder seam (the body of the shirt is one huge piece of fabric, slashed on the fold for the neck). After the neck edge had been gathered, I had no idea where to line up the end of the shoulder strip over the gathering and triangular neck gussets set in each side of the neck. Ultimately I thought the shirt would look much better without these shoulder strips anyway, so it wasn't a great loss.

Because the shirt didn't have to look historically accurate, but more fantasy historical, we made some alterations. The cuffs were altered and made longer, but also shaped so they would wing out diagonally away from the hand, and button at the wrist.

We changed the neck placket from a simple "machine a strip on, slash and turn to the inside and stitch by hand into place" to a more modern variation of the placket, with buttons and buttonholes. Robin put together a knotwork inspired design to represent the Old Norse World Tree of Yggdrasil, and I executed it in a simple Holbein stitch around the placket in a green embroidery cotton to match his coat. We thought about doing the cuffs and collar too, but there wasn't time, and in retrospect I think that would have been overdoing it. Robin wore a green silk cravat as a kind of neck tie/stock, so the embroidery was hidden, until later in the evening when the cravat came off, and there was just a flash of embroidery every now and then. I would love to tell you about the waistcoat, but Robin made it himself. I'm actually incredibly lucky enough to be married now to someone who is almost as interested as I am in sewing and all things costume related. Again, it's a J.P. Ryan pattern, with the collar modified to a stand-up one. The front is a cotton twill, with self-covered buttons, and the back and lining are a finer white cotton. (I wish I could tell you we made the trousers, but we didn't. We cheated. They came from Austin Reed...)]]>

Thank you so much for all your praise for my wedding dress! Perhaps you’d like to read what the groom wore? Robin’s outfit has a heavy nod to the 18th century, although not being strictly historically authentic. (It was only once we’d started all this sewing caper that I realised we had a 1920s bridesmaid dress, a medieval meets Edwardian wedding dress and an 18th century groom!)

The coat is itself probably a post for another day, so let’s look at what went underneath.

The white linen shirt is made from a pattern from The Recollections of J.P. Ryan, a pattern company that specialises in the Georgian Era. The shirt went together incredibly easily and quickly, being mostly lots of large squares and rectangles, with the shaping achieved with gathering, and square gussets under the arms and triangular gussets at the neck. It was much larger and longer than a modern shirt, as was the style in the 18th Century, with full dropped shoulder sleeves:

It was a good well drafted pattern, but I couldn’t figure how on earth to attach two strips across each shoulder (a bit like sewn down epaulettes). These would apparently have reinforced the shoulder, in the absence of a shoulder seam (the body of the shirt is one huge piece of fabric, slashed on the fold for the neck). After the neck edge had been gathered, I had no idea where to line up the end of the shoulder strip over the gathering and triangular neck gussets set in each side of the neck. Ultimately I thought the shirt would look much better without these shoulder strips anyway, so it wasn’t a great loss.

Because the shirt didn’t have to look historically accurate, but more fantasy historical, we made some alterations. The cuffs were altered and made longer, but also shaped so they would wing out diagonally away from the hand, and button at the wrist.

We changed the neck placket from a simple “machine a strip on, slash and turn to the inside and stitch by hand into place” to a more modern variation of the placket, with buttons and buttonholes. Robin put together a knotwork inspired design to represent the Old Norse World Tree of Yggdrasil, and I executed it in a simple Holbein stitch around the placket in a green embroidery cotton to match his coat. We thought about doing the cuffs and collar too, but there wasn’t time, and in retrospect I think that would have been overdoing it. Robin wore a green silk cravat as a kind of neck tie/stock, so the embroidery was hidden, until later in the evening when the cravat came off, and there was just a flash of embroidery every now and then.

I would love to tell you about the waistcoat, but Robin made it himself. I’m actually incredibly lucky enough to be married now to someone who is almost as interested as I am in sewing and all things costume related. Again, it’s a J.P. Ryan pattern, with the collar modified to a stand-up one. The front is a cotton twill, with self-covered buttons, and the back and lining are a finer white cotton.

(I wish I could tell you we made the trousers, but we didn’t. We cheated. They came from Austin Reed…)

The sword, which did a fantastic job of cutting the cake, was commissioned from Heron Armoury, and is now referred to as “the other woman”.

Here I am again, still skipping through those poppies.... Soooo...about the wedding dress. Are you all feeling strong? Shall we get down to the finer details? Right...

The look I was going for was a little bit Lord of the Rings Elvish, with a little bit of the elegance of a Grecian style pleated dress by Gres meets the Edwardian Pre-Raphelite idea of what a Medieval damsel would have worn. Phew.

My starting point for the pattern was a Badgley Mischka design, Vogue 1030. But only because I liked the skirt:

I got as far as mocking it up out of muslin and it only reaffirmed my belief that nothing promises quite so much but delivers so little as the empire line waist. It promises comfort and flattery and makes you look like you're wearing a nightdress:

Isn't that a bit, well, matronly?!? I loved the way the skirt fell, though, so I decided to use the skirt sections and drop the waistline. I took the skirt pieces and shortened the top edge to 1.5cm above the waistline point as marked on the pattern, following the curve of the top edge (the 1.5cm was for seam allowance). I also lengthened the actual hem by 5 inches (I'm tall...). In actual fact though I let the dress hang before hemming and the fabric stretched on the bias so much that I had to cut about 4 inches off before hemming! All the fabrics I used simply came from Whaleys of Bradford: wide medium silk crepe de chine, and heavy crepe back satin for the underskirt. The skirt has a large gathered panel at the centre front. Even working with a thing crepe de chine, the tightly gathered silk was bulky to work with in that area.

The pattern has two thin layers under the skirt proper. I decided to go for one thicker layer.This was probably a mistake because my fabric choice for the underskirt was poor. I used a heavy crepe back satin, which seemed stiffer in sample form than when I had 3m of it in front of me. I perhaps should have used a manmade fabric like an acetate to get the kind of light resilient stiffness I needed, but I couldn't bring myself to use a manmade fabric in a wedding dress. To make the skirt proper go out a bit and not just twine around my ankles and trip me up, I decided to make the underskirt wider, which I did by taking the sides out. I also cut the front in two pieces and seamed down the middle, rather than one. When I hemmed the underskirt I used fusible Wundaweb in the hem to give it stiffness. This helped a little, but I still felt a little hampered by yards of silk round my ankles as I moved. I went for the satin because the lines of the dress meant a petticoat or slip might be visible and I didn't want any transparency so I had to use a fabric with some substance.

I decided to keep the silhouette of the top half of the dress fitted. The pattern I used was actually a vintage bathing suit pattern from the 1950s, minus the cuff:

The reason I used this pattern is that the cut gives quite a moulded look, as it actually takes the bodice in close to the chest down the centre front, rather than just leaving a cavity of air. I mocked this up in a cotton drill and spent some time getting the fit right. I used this same cotton drill for the base layer, sewing in a layer of the underskirt satin on top as I went along, with rigilene boning machined straight on down each seam, but not on the curve of the bust seam.

I then draped and pleated crepe de chine freely on top. That was the hardest part. I started with the crepe de chine on-grain at the bodice centre front and worked outwards until it was on the bias at the flat sides so it stretched in more dimensions, and then tacked it as invisibly as I could by hand on the inside: The hardest thing was doing that while simulating the curve of my shape inside it. I cut the edges and attached the bodice and skirt at the waist and inserted an invisible zipper. It was at this point things started to go a little downhill. I'd sewn the zipper in so close to the teeth that it was very invisible but would actually do up without much swearing and help. After reinserting the zipper I tried it on for the first time properly. I liked it. I made a bodice lining out of a thin cotton batiste, sewed it round the top of the bodice edge, turned it to the inside, understitched, and hand stitched the back edges and waist.

It was at that stage something began to bother me. Either I'd put on a bit of extra weight, or I hadn't really studied the bodice properly when I'd tried it on. I tried to pretend I didn't see it, but the fact that one of the pleats was strained over my bust to the point where it almost wasn't a pleat any more. Was it OK? Could I live with it? It's not as bad as you think, said Robin. It's fine. But if you want to fix it, we can take some of the fullness out of some other pleats and redistribute it. I started to cry, explaining the amount of unpicking that had to be done, explaining that it wasn't that simple as redistibuting the fullness would mean the top layer of crepe de chine edges wouldn't be sewed in, and that it was all a disaster and I was just going to buy one. The dress was left for a day. And then I picked it up and began the unpicking process. Pleat fullness was redistributed. The lining was sewn back in. And it was better. And I was glad I'd done it. The sash was simply a long strip of crepe de chine, hemmed and cut on an acute diagonal across the ends. The buckle is a late Edwardian/1920s affair I picked up on ebay. I replaced some of the stones from some old broken costume jewellery I had stashed using superglue. The sash simply threaded through the belt (rather than the belt being able to unclasp and separate in the middle) and knotted at the back.

I bought some metal bra straps and sewed a couple of ribbon hooks inside the bodice to hold them. I'd never worn a strapless dress before and if it kept heading South I'd simply slip the straps in. Actually, surprising enough it held up for the day and I didn't use the straps at all.

Originally I was going to make a sheer jacket/robe/ bolero with big medieval elvish sleeves and beading etc etc, but time defeated me. It was a week before the wedding, and my brain was so addled I couldn't think straight. I was also rapidly approaching sewing burnout point, so I decided just to buy something instead. All googling permutations didn't turn up much, until I came across an inexpensive lace bolero on ebay from graceandflaironline. (They come in other colours too. If tempted, and dithering between two sizes, go for the smaller size.) I sewed on some clear silver-lined seed beads round the sleeves and neckline.

The elvish circlet was also an ebay purchase from unfauxgettabledesigns, and the necklace was one I'd picked up some time back in an antique shop in Bath.

The knot has been tied! As you can see from the pic, Robin and I are officially husband and wife. Either that or we just like skipping around in wedding wear in poppy fields for sport :) Thank you so much to all of you who sent messages of love and wedding wishes for the 7th June. And thank you to those of you who were actually at the wedding for helping make it an utterly unforgettable day- I only hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

More posting on how we made our outfits will follow very soon :)]]>

The knot has been tied! As you can see from the pic, Robin and I are officially husband and wife. Either that or we just like skipping around in wedding wear in poppy fields for sport :) Thank you so much to all of you who sent messages of love and wedding wishes for the 7th June. And thank you to those of you who were actually at the wedding for helping make it an utterly unforgettable day- I only hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

What a whirl. The day itself rushed past at blurry speed, especially the ceremony, which was held the remains of an old Norman building called the Lost Village of Dode, with candles absolutely everywhere and straw carpeting the floor and the heady smell of lavender in the air…

We’d kept the venue a secret from the guests- I only wish I could have seen their reaction as they alighted from our wedding minibuses…
Then, we all headed to Nettlestead Place, a doomsday manor house with amazing gardens, for the wedding “feast”.

In the evening there was dancing and merrymaking courtesy of the most amazing trio of Tudor minstrels, Diabolus, who never wavered in their Elizabethan diction. I remember complimenting their leader (see the pic below) on his amazing hat. “I thank you, Mistress, ’tis of mine own manufacture” he replied, with satisfaction.

Hettie, as you don’t need me to tell you, was a marvellous bridesmaid and looked simply splendid.

More posting on how we made our outfits will follow very soon :)