1860's Work Dress

For the past few years, I’ve wanted a simple 1860’s work dress that I could wear to the local Civil War reenactment events, so when I found some lightweight homespun-style cotton for $2 a yard, I decided that this would be a good time to give it a try. This project was supposed to be a "quick and easy" costume, but I’m starting to think that "quick and easy" are words that should banished from my sewing vocabulary! This dress ended up taking me 6 months to finish, but most of that was spent with me pouting while the dress lay wadded up in the corner. But anyhoo… it’s finally done now, and I’m pretty happy with the results. It’s been a bit hard for me to get used to the 1860's aesthetic - it’s definitely not my favorite period of fashion history - but at least this dress doesn't look too costume-y to me, which was one of my biggest goals. You can read more details about the construction below the pictures, and hopefully I’ll have some better photos soon.

I started this project by making the smaller 96" covered crinoline from the Martha McCain Simplicity pattern (#7216). I was feeling cheap, so I decided to experiment with using piano wire (AKA music wire) for the boning. My first try was with a continuous coil of wire, but I quickly discovered that the wire is tempered into the coiled shape, and it cannot be straightened again without a GREAT deal of effort – which makes it useless for hoops. My next try was with shorter, straight pieces of piano wire, which you can buy at model and hobby shops. It only comes in yard-long pieces though, so I had to splice 2 or 3 pieces together to make each hoop. I tried to use brass tubing to make connectors, but that was a BAD idea for more reasons than I care to go into here. It would have been much easier and sturdier to just overlap the wires, then wrap them with jewelry wire and tape. But even that isn’t a great solution because the joined pieces can pull back apart if the tape doesn’t hold. Piano wire is lightweight and sturdy as a rock, but I’m not sure I could ever recommend it for large hoops. I made it work in the end (I did a lot of channeling of Tim Gunn during this project!), but the amount of time I spent on making these hoops is just mind boggling! It was SO not worth the money I saved. Piano wire would definitely work well for bustles though, so I’m sure I’ll be using it again in the future for that.

The dress is loosely based on the Martha McCain Simplicity gathered dress (#4551). The skirt, collar, and undersleeves are directly taken from that pattern, but my bodice was significantly modified from her original design. I was shocked by how short-waisted and poofy this dress pattern looked when made up, so I eventually scrapped the first bodice, and remade it by replacing the front section with another MM bodice design (#7212). I learned that lightweight cotton dresses rarely featured darted bodices during the early 1860’s, so I just gathered the extra fabric in the front instead of sewing the darts. The coat sleeves on my dress are somewhat similar to the second Simplicity pattern’s design, but I modified them as well to get the exact shape that I wanted. The trim design for the sleeves was inspired by this CDV photograph that I saw on ebay. The ribbon is 100% nylon velvet (along with the belt), which dyes like a dream! It was originally light brown, but I dyed it with some scarlet Rit to make it match the vintage glass ball buttons that I found for the bodice front.

To finish off the dress, I am wearing an antique silver belt buckle that I thought looked very similar to those commonly seen in portraits from that period. The brooch is an antique as well, and I will eventually be wearing a silk ribbon bow at my neck. I meant to do something a lot more elaborate for my hairnet, but this one was just a quickie version that I made with the help of my trusty hot glue gun 30 minutes before I had to leave for the event. The shoes are simple leather granny boots that I found for under $20 on ebay, but I thought that I really lucked out by how much they looked like period brogans. I also made an apron from reproduction calico that I can wear while working at reenactment events. Hopefully, I'll have some pictures of that soon.