Meet the completed pet en l'air. This has been a week of traumas, obsessive sewing and happy painting.

As usual the simple task list hid hours of work.

Task one – sleeves. Made up sleeve-1 as per pattern – did not fit to the robings as shown on the Arnold drawing and stuck straight out like a penguin.. They would do for fitted sleeves but needed greater length between the bottom of the arm hole and the head plus more width at the head because of the lengthening of the front bodice. There was  sleeve-2, and sleeve-3. I wasn't sure about the fullness at the top of the arm but many portraits show a looseness there, so it will stay. The arm is set back and angles backward rather than hanging straight ( better than the first Pingu attempts). I have been assured that this is right but it still looks strange to me –truly need a real Gwendoline to see how this works.

After sleeve trauma came flounce-gate. Having been out and bought contrast fabric for lining the flounce and then made them and attached them, I decided the bulk of fabric in the fine gathers at the cuff looked clumsy and awkward. Hmm. Then salvation through the post – Fashion History arrived showing details of the Kyoto Institute collection – lots of raw pinked edges! Did get a little carried away, well a lot carried away. It took several days of looking and pondering before giving in (time for the perforated finger ends to heal- sewing the flounces on had been a pig of a job) Off came the flounces, unpicked and pinked and reattached with the lining now dropped slightly and facing outward.



  Much happier with the results and a quick lace ruffle put in to complete the look. In the mean time furbelow fever struck – Not on the original design at all but having seen so many examples it seemed silly not to try. Bye bye to Wednesday. These are 2cm wide strips with 1cm box pleats meeting nearly edge to edge down the length of the strip. Huge lengths had to be pinked, measured and sewn and then attached but it was strangely compelling. I had intended to add just two strips either side of the centre front on the stomacher…... not down the entire front but...

and then just had to try doing curling flourishes at the hem. I still think of these as moustachios.

It has changed the nature of the garment – it was quite plain and clean with a clarity about the construction, but now is fluffy and fussy.  I still quite like it, but that was Thursday gone as well!

Final finishing – the hem and redoing the sleeve flounces and that was Saturday. DONE.
 

Fragonard - the Love Letter. Met Museum

nattier 1750

This has been a great adventure – painful at times but rewarding. The research has gobbled up hours – trawling for 18thC painters has introduced many new names to explore and reintroduce old favourite pieces. I was expecting rigid, theatrical, formalised portraits with grandiose dresses, silks, flying ribbons and romantic notions of settings and did find lots of them. Considering the highly mannered style of the Rococo some of the portraits are definitely modern in their boldness and direct use of colour and composition. I still have trouble dating  some paintings - the dates of the sitter are given but not that of the artwork, a real menace especially when artists used their own collection of garments over many years to pose their models in. Jacquet !

Liotard 1754

I've also been reading “Queen of Fashion – what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution” by Caroline Weber. Very different attitudes to the significance of dress. The rigid stratification of society up held by distinctions in dress code, I had known about this but not the extreme importance it seems to be given in the breakdown of the ancien regime. Were the experiments in new dress modes responsible for, or merely a symptom of new ideas? Was it the new that caused the conflict or the determined adherence to the old?

And of course I've been illustrating – an interior, seated pose to reflect the pet's informal nature.

Lacking anyone daft enough to pose for me I have had to borrow bits of myself to help – so no elegant young romantic writing love letters – just me with a drawing board or table. I love artistic license – bye to the wrinkly bits – a very cheap face lift! Promise she does look happier in close ups. It is a love doing the fabric. Does any else want paintings of cloth? Some court portraitists hired specialists to paint in the clothes - does an opening still exist do you think?