Hi!!

First of all, this gown sold last week and is now on its way to live in Canada.  Really excited about that!

It is a 1878 reproduction of this gown:

Now onto the next gown in progress.  See the two gowns on the left and right?  I am going to replicate by merging the two skirt looks together:

This picture is actually taken in 1877 (I think), but what they are, are gowns during the Natural Form era (the phase in between the two bustle eras).  However, what I am going to do is make the gown right when the bustle was once again introduced.  Historically, this happened all of the time.  It was too costly for many women to go out and have a new wardrobe made just because the bustle came back into popularity.  What many women did was turn their gowns into a bustle gown ... which was easily done as the Natural Form era gowns were usually trained, so all that some women needed to do was bustle up the train and they were at least back in fashion again, for the most part.  Some women left all of the skirt decoration in place (which is what I am going to do), while others removed some of the ornate trim, as the second bustle era was generally minus the foo foo that the first bustle era through the Natural Form era had.  I am generally a no, to relatively little, foo foo type of person, but in this case, I am going to foo foo away ;).  I have no way of knowing what the backs look like, so I am going to wing it ... basically will be leaving it relatively plain and just let the poofs be the decoration.

The fabrics I am using are a silver blue Grosgrain fabric and a loosely woven white fabric:

A little spring to summer colored, I realize, going into Autumn, but perhaps I'll accent with a darker fabric to bring it into a cooler season (the Victorians did that sort of thing as well).

I am happy to say, business is beginning to pick up ... been kind of like feast or famine (mostly famine) for a while ... here's to hoping it keeps up ... but I'll just keep on making the gowns any way regardless.

Keep your smiles firmly in place, and have a wonderful day.