gentleman's toiles

week II  - Northern College of Costume.  1830 Gentleman's outfit - toiles.


 Not a powerful lot to show for a challenging week. This was a preparation week - finishing drafting, drawing up, constructing toiles, a first fitting, and redrafting. In amongst this we also fitted a day of fly fronts and split fall samples. Add into that waistcoat collar and buttonhole  traumas plus a visit to the Quilting Museum to see the costume exhibition, and it seems amazing that it was only 5 days.
In fact it was so engaging that I forgot to take photos of most of it- again. Did get the camera out but not much further....

Main task of the week was finishing drafting and assembling the Cossack trousers, waistcoat and frockcoat for the 1830s gentleman's outfit.  We were working from the patterns set out by R I Davis in  Men's Seventeenth & Eighteenth Century Costume: Cut and Fashion   which are long lists of  dot to dot  coordinates and instructions with line diagrams. Should end up something like this from the V&A.
 Getting started was scary - there was maths involved but thankfully  a logic in the construction  which helped. The drafted patterns were then transferred to calico,  cut out, marked up and assembled into the toile (test garment).

pattern for the frock coat



brave soul!

  The deadline for this was Thursday when my poor victim was coming in for the first fitting. This should have been traumatic as most of the measurements were guess work.( the one we actually had was wrong!) but it went very well. Some parts  - neck lines - have to go out a bit, the shirt collar redone completely, some parts have to get longer - the waist of both trousers and waistcoat plus the coat hem, and  we are creating a side seam in the coat to give the torso more shape.  These adjustments have been made on the pattern pieces and some have been redrawn ready for  next week when we make up the trousers for real.  I'll show the fabric and details of the design and construction in the next post.

The other practical this week was samples for trouser fastenings; button flies and splitfalls.  Guest tutor Julia took us for this - we made calico and woollen cloth samples for the flies and just a calico for the splitfalls.
Flies seem to have an accepted standard layout but the splifalls seem to be more of a moveable feast, the principle remains but the number and placement of buttons, plackets, etc, can changeable. Where the photos  for the wool cloth flies and the splitfalls are I don't know! - just imagine them - like the example from Augusta Auctions, beautiful, precise, immaculate - I wish! The idea is that there are flaps that crossover and fasten with buttons behind the front panel that covers all the draughty bits and buttons up like a bib front. The 2 buttons either side at the waist are for braces.


example from Augusta Auctions

 The first revision is done - replacing the shirt collar was completed yesterday - lounging on the sofa, munching raspberries and cashews, watching a borrowed film- The Company of Strangers- worth a watch if you are after something intriguing and quiet rather than dramatic.