Costuming in Quarantine

By week two of quarantine, my niche interests started to emerge. It’s easy to obsess over things when you have a lot of free time and boundless creative energy. Since I’m not doing alterations work while small businesses are shut down, I’ve had some free time to actually sew for myself for the first time in a while. I’ve been making a jacket and a couple shirts, but I needed something truly impractical to do: reconstruct a historical 18th century dress. Why not? 

I’ve been watching the show Outlander for a few months: a 1940s British war nurse, Claire, accidentally slips through time in Scotland. She ends up in the 1740s during the Jacobite rebellion and eventually forms a romance with a Highlander. It’s often very melodramatic and soapy and usually not my thing, but the COSTUMES. Grounded in the mid-1700s but inspired by the 1940s, the costumes are exquisite. 

Today, not many examples of Highlander women’s clothing exist, since the Scottish clan system was disbanded and outlawed in 1746. So it’s been awesome to kind of discover that time and place through the show. In the second season, the characters go to France, which just adds a whole other dimension of fashion–It’s 20th century Dior meets 18th century French aristocracy. Like, come ON.

For my first project, though, I decided to tackle the simpler Scottish styles first. Through many YouTube videos, niche costuming blogs, and a copy of The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking, I began constructing the undergarments.

The Stays & Chemise

Undergarments are essential to historical dress. In order to get that trademark 18th century “conical” shape (with shelf boobs! You know what I mean), I needed to make stays. “Stays” are what corsets were called pre-19th century. They didn’t restrict the waist the way that the hourglass corsets of the 19th century did, so I’ve found my stays more comfortable to wear than I expected. 

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I bought this pattern from Redthreaded and luckily had the materials lying around: a half yard of canvas for the outside, a yard of white twill for the middle and inner layer, ribbons to attach the straps, bias tape to bind the edges, an awl for poking the lacing eyelets, thick thread for hand-binding the eyelets, a white cord from an old sweatshirt for lacing, and about 25 zip ties for the boning. 

I could’ve used actual steel boning like is common today, plastic boning to mimic the historical whale boning, or reed boning as was more common in the Renaissance. Depends on your century and decade within that century! But zip ties are an amazing, cheap and sturdy substitute.

The pattern I followed was super thorough and didn’t make this process as painful as I thought it would be. I used size XS and didn’t have to alter the pattern (some people have to shorten the waist length). I was dreading making this piece, but I think I enjoyed it the most out of everything. (Side note: spiral lacing–instead of cross lacing–was the norm in this period because it gives way more support and strength!)

Additionally, I just eyeballed making a chemise for my second undergarment. In that time period, a chemise was the thin white nightgown-looking-dress that women would have a dozen of to wear under everything so they didn’t have to wash the stays or the dresses. I made mine out of white cotton gauze (I would’ve rather used cotton voile or linen, but we’re in a pandemic and I can’t be picky right now). I just basically cut two 35” long rectangles, cut out a square for the neckline, sewed them together, attached a basic sleeve, and ran elastic around the neck. It took probably an hour, as this was the piece I cared the least about. Whatever gets it done!

The Bum Roll

A bum roll is a small stuffed pad that sits at the waist around the hips and back (over the stays, below the under-petticoat and skirt) and gives the dress a boxy fullness around the hips. My sister Peyton says my bum roll and skirt make me look like a trash can. In other words, like a cylinder. That’s kind of what they were going for back then–it wasn’t the point yet to have the volume at the bottom of the dress.

Bum rolls were common in the mid-18th century. Since stays didn’t actually suck in the waist the same way the hourglass corsets would do in the 19th century, 18th century women needed an optical illusion to make the waist look smaller. This bum roll gives you slightly wider hips without being overly exaggerated. 

Other alternatives to the bum roll are the “false rump,” similar to a bum roll but a larger pillow shape with more emphasis around the butt. Panniers were boned “side hoops” that made your hips so wide (but butt flat) it was hard to fit through a door without going sideways. They were usually only worn for formal occasions–you see them most commonly in late 18th century French “saque” gowns. Hoop skirts, the underskirts with circular boning all the way down to the floor, were more common in the 19th century (and today! Many princess wedding dresses have them). 

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Since my dress is mid-18th century Scottish daywear, I chose to stick with the simple bum roll. Even 250 years ago, it was still in style to be thicc. 

The Under-Petticoat

My fourth undergarment was the under-petticoat. I used a three-yard piece of grandma-floral quilting cotton, cut in two pieces 43ish” long, and pleated each piece with 14 1” pleats. I added a piece of ribbon across the top of each piece, with extra length to tie around the waist, and sewed both fabrics together vertically, leaving a 10” gap on the sides. 

Back in those days, you’d wear a separate pocket attached around your waist. Your petticoats would have openings in the sides so you could reach it. So, this petticoat goes on by tying the back piece around the front of the waist and tying the front piece around the back of the waist.

Under-petticoats added volume to the petticoat (skirt), prevented itching from the uncomfy wool, and reduced amount of washings the wool skirt needed.

The Dress

Ok. Onto the real deal. I bought McCall pattern M7735, part of their Outlander series. This pattern is a good starting point, but is VERY BASIC. Like, if I’m gonna go through this trouble to make an Outlander costume, shouldn’t it be as accurate as possible? So with The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking and this YouTube video, I was able to alter the pattern to how it was constructed on the show. This is not historically accurate, but it’s close enough. Here’s how the pattern was changed from the original:

If I could do it again, I’d make the waist ruffle part of the same fabric as the the back pieces, not separate. Historically, all those seams in the back are not separate pieces, but one piece that has been pleated. This allowed dressmakers to take apart the very expensive fabric later to make into a new style of dress once the other went out of fashion.

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I should add that every single piece of fabric I used was scraps from the fabric scrap storage closet at Alterations by Frances. Shout out to Frances for letting me use anything I wanted! I saved hundreds of dollars in fabric costs. ESPECIALLY this amazing plaid skirt I was able to make–do you know how expensive plaid wool is? I was researching it for weeks before I stumbled upon four yards of it in the closet. SCORE. 

I didn’t follow the McCall pattern for the skirt, but instead made it the same way as I did the under-petticoat. 14 1” pleats, front and back, tied twice around the waist with pocket openings in the sides. 

Finally, I cut a square piece of cotton gauze for a neck scarf, made a long ribbon out of tan satin (for the front lacing) and constructed a stomacher (the stiff piece that goes in the opening of your top) out of a triangular piece of fabric and cardboard from a Ritz box. 

Here it is altogether! 

Next Projects

There are a few more Outlander-inspired pieces I’ve been dying to make, including Claire’s wedding dress and a couple pieces from her time in France. I also want to make a 1770s-80s colonial American dress! All of these projects will require more specific fabrics that I don’t have (and, like, 10 yards each of them), so I’ll have to hold off on that for a bit. Plus, I don’t even have anywhere to wear these outfits. But who cares, really!

Also, for fun, because I found some nice jacquard in the scrap closet, I made a renaissance festival outfit out of cotton gauze for the dress, jacquard for the vest, and satin for the skirt. I made this exactly from Butterick pattern 3906, and it is not historically accurate at all, but it’s the “standard” renaissance peasant woman outfit everyone wears to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. My Outlander dress would work perfectly for Highlander Weekend at the festival, but I’ll have to learn how to stand being in something so heavy, hot, and stiff for, like, five hours at a time. We’ll see. 

If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Very few people geek out about historical costuming like I do. For now, I’m going back to mask-making. Reach out to me if you need one. Stay safe!