Peignoir,
2022
A dream event: Weekend house party in
a beautiful 19th century manor house hotel. But what to wear for
breakfast? By this point I had a quite decent wardrobe for
Natural Form era, but I lacked comfy loungewear because,
obviously, you seldom need such in most costuming events. So,
this was the perfect opportunity to make some.
I had even before this daydreamed about flimsy white morning
dresses with a lot of lace insertions and ruffles, but
unfortunately those were totally unrealistic for the schedule.
As my petticoat was nothing fancy but decent enough and not too
worn out I decided that a short peignoir on top of it would be
adequate.
The
Material
For once I was lucky, just when I should really be starting the
peignoir I found a cute broderie anglaise blouse from a thrift
store. It was a bit large for me, but might work for dress
material. I had a lot of cotton batiste at home and I began to
think combining them for the peignoir. I even had another
previous thrifted treasure in stash, a bolt of broderie anglaise
lace which resembled the pattern in the blouse fabric and the
lace in my petticoat. I would certainly get something adequate
out of these.
Choosing
the style
From my overflowing Pinterest board I picked a few original
pieces that caught my fancy. I wasn’t too particular about the
dating, I just wanted something roughly suitable. A couple of
examples had a front panel made with lace insertions in bias,
and as the blouse was also cut in bias and the embroidery
pattern had stripes I thought I might use it to make a sort of
cheap imitation of this style.
Another peignoir had a back panel similarly decorated with
pleats, so I thought I could plausibly put an embroidered panel
also in the back.
I liked the idea, so I began to plan the peignoir around it.
First I took the blouse to pieces to see what I could cut from
it.
Drafting
the pattern
The pattern is somewhat based on the basic shape of the peignoir
on “Fashions of the Gilded Age”-book. The front edge is straight
and the front pieces don’t have any darts. The back has some
shaping, though. Interestingly, the sleeve is in two pieces even
in a loose-fitting garment such as this.
My striped cotton summer dress was a bit loose fitting so I
started out with the same pattern. The back is more or less the
same (without the wide back pleat for skirt width of course). On
the front I left out the pleats at the front and the waist
darts. Both are slightly flared at the hem. I widened the sleeve
a bit and drafted the armhole larger. Then I estimated the line
for front and back panels. Both have straight edge, as I thought
it would be easier to join on the batiste piece.
I cut the front panel from the
blouse front, leaving the buttoning placket in place. The back
panels came from the sleeves. The rest of the pieces were in
batiste.
Sewing
Like in my other underwear, I assembled the peignoir mainly with
flat felled seams and the like. I joined the broderie anglaise
panels on the batiste by hiding the seam allowances in a pleat
and adding another pleat next to it to complete the look.
The center back seam allowances in broderie anglaise pieces are
covered on the wrong side with bias tape. By the way, the bias
material stretched so much that I had to take in a bit more at
the waist to get it to match the pattern.
On the front edges I removed the buttons and
removed the stitching that secured the edge of the buttoning
placket. This way I managed to squeeze the edge of a gathered
lace underneath it before stitching it back on and sewing the
buttons back.
I took apart the top and underside of the collar, shortened it a
bit and added gathered lace on the edges. Then I sewed it back
on and added the underside layer. Yes, it might have been even
easier to make a new one, but the original collar was cut with
the woven stripe which I wanted to keep.
I had made the pattern to the length I would get out of the
blouse pieces, so it still needed some more length at the hem.
The obvious solution was a wide ruffle. I cut it from the
batiste, edged it with lace and added a couple of narrow pleats.
I cut the back of the original blouse
into strips by the stripe, and they were just long enough when
joined at the side seams to go around the peignoir hem. I used
them as a fake lace insertion again to join the ruffle into the
bodice hem. To adapt it to the flared hem I gathered the top
edge slightly.
I finished the sleeves with a similar insertion and ruffle. The
delightfully impractical flared sleeves actually became one of
my favorite details in the peignoir.
At this point I had almost used up all the lace, but I still
managed to get tiny pockets out of it and the remaining pieces
of broderie anglaise.
For the last thing I added thread loops on the neckline and
sleeves for attaching ribbon bows so that they could be easily
removed for washing.
Conclusion
I did not plan the construction super thoroughly before
starting, and made some decisions while I went. On the
afterthought the lace in the front edges looks too tightly
gathered, I should probably rather have pleated it. If I had
used less there I might have had more left for decently sized
pockets.
Another minor quibble is that the batiste looks slightly too
heavy compared to the flimsy broderie anglaise. But then again,
I didn’t want to go shopping for this one, and the same batiste
has proved easy to work with and reliable in many previous
undergarment projects. It’s not fun to make smallish flat felled
seams on all fabrics.
But on the whole the peignoir turned out quite pretty, and I
think the fake-lace inserts give a nice look. While the
petticoat is quite heavy, I think the peignoir manages to strike
a nice balance between delicate and practical. It was one of
those fun, quick projects that are sometimes refreshing between
ambitious long-time ones.