The Cherry Orchard Workbook
- Anniken Blokkhus
- Jan 3, 2021
- 8 min read
Content
Skirt and blouse
Skirt and evening bodice
Updated skirt and blouse designs. Received same week as first fitting.
Updated design for bodice and skirt, belt was added to design. Received same week as first fitting.
Collar for both blouse and bodice. Alteration – instead of curved pattern the collar is cut straight on the fold of the fabric.
Cuff for blouse sleeves. No alterations needed
Blouse. Alternation – neckline and armhole
Blouse sleeves. Alterations – Shorten the sleeve a bit.
Bodice sleeves. Alterations – pleats on the bottom to make the sleeves tighter.
Bodice. Alterations – Add 1cm to CB.
Skirt. Alterations – Shorten skirt and tiny pleat on towards CB to remove access form waistline.
Blouse
Bodice
Skirt
Front, side and back view of the actor
Before photos of blouse and skirt.
After photos of blouse and skirt.
Before photos of Bodice and skirt
After photos of bodice and skirt. Added to costume is a belt.
Rebekah Nicol
Varya act 1
- Shoes fit nicely and corset feels fine
- Needs a smaller bum pad - need a rounded one
- Blouse
- Use the black bits on the fabric for the cuffs and neck
- Armhole needs to be higher
- Collar
- See pins for placement
- Fold in half for the height and see pins for reference
- Sleeve
- As pinned
- Sleeve is too long - take up as pinned
- Shoes need to be polished
- Skirt hem - 1 inch off the floor at the front and lower at the back (just touching the floor) - needs to be able to move freely as is a very practical character - see pins for length
- Buttons - black glass buttons - round and tiny
Varya
Act 3
- Front needs to be shorter to make it period accurate - follow pins for reference
- Waistband needed - cut on bias - shape to a point at the front - see calico for shape and size
- Hook and bar tape down the back
- Panel of pleating at the front and lace? - Lucy needs to decide
- Let it out slightly at the centre back - see pins for reference
- Need bones
- Collar as pinned
- Good fit on the armholes
- Pin bodice to the skirt to keep it up
- Bodice under the skirt? Think about the finishing
- Sleeve
- 3/4 length and ruched
- 2 piece sleeve - fitted to give more shape
- See pins for width and shape of sleeve
- More embellishment on the bodice needed
- Add texture - soft pleats and lace - kat will explain further
Varya in act 1 – Skirt and blouse
Varya in act 3 – Bodice, skirt and belt
1
Beautiful blouse
Maker - make a loop on left side of the skirt waistband with same skirt fabric (speak to Kat
2
Bodice needs hooks and bars so it can hook and attach to skirt - it’s falling down
Hook and bar on waistband as pinned (belt)
Poppers on back of skirt – keeps opening
Tiny pleat in sleeves – as pinned
The Edwardian era started after Queen Victoria died in January 1901. Her son Edward VII would give his name to an era of unparalleled luxury and opulence. (Unknown, 2003)
The change from Victorian fashion over to Edwardian was a very seamless change as already in the late Victorian era. The skirts had gotten smaller and was tighter around the hips and flared out at the bottom like a trumpet. The blouses and bodices had gotten bigger over the busts to simulate a uni-breast or pigeon breast as it was also called. (Unknown, 2003)
The Edwardian woman would often use a suit as their daily uniform. It consisted of a skirt, a blouse and a matching jacket. They didn’t always match in the way that the skirt could be patterned, and the jacket could be a solid colour. The suit was fashionable, durable, empowering and practical for a woman at that time to wear.
Fig.1 Suit for women ca. 1907. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.)
The blouse was often called waists the Edwardian era and they were modest, high neck, in whit or coloured fabric. The waists were most often buttoned in the back but as the era moved on buttoning on the front became more common. It also gave the suit wearing ladies a more masculine look as well as the buttons was nice decoration. The blouses were often decorated with lace and ruffles down the front. They had a snug collar and loose sleeves with a thigh cuff. Compared to the Victorian era the sleeves weren’t ass big but still had structure and gathers at the shoulder and at the wrist for fullness.
Fig.2 & 3 Blouse left ca. 1900-1902. Blouse right ca. 1900-1905. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.)
The blouses or waists in the Edwardian time period consisted of plain blouses whit lace decorations or frills. Pintucks and pleats were also often used to decorate the blouses with to create dimension. In the two pictures above, you can see examples of what looks like pintucks or pleats used as a form of decoration. In the second photo you see an example of a blouse that has lace and what looks like pintucks as decoration, the collar is also made from lace.
Blouses in this period were often made in sheer thin fabric and with a high neckline and then a collar. The sleeves on a blouse were fitted or slightly gathered at the sleeve head and then was more lose and bigger at the end of the sleeves and fitted into a tight cuff to give of a balloon looking sleeve. This was very opposite from the Victorian blouses that had more volume at the top of the sleeve and then tightened at the bottom.
For my blouse I’ve chosen to use pin-tucks as a way of decorating a rather plain blouse design and give it the look of it being striped. It also gives me another challenge as I’ve never made pintucks before, rather than that I just make a simple blouse. The blouse I made is also decorated with lace on the collar and has lace on the cuffs as well. The lace used on the collar and cuffs are the same left over lace from the original blouse fabric.
Fig.4 Fashion plates form 1902-1909 showing of different types of blouses. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.)
On this fashion plate you can clearly see how the sleeves are tight at the top and then flares out at the bottom and gathered into a tight cuff around the wrist.
During the Edwardian era the bell-shaped skirt was introduced to support the S shape that the women of that time longed after. The skirt was fitted around the hips and then flared out at the bottom. The skirt would even sometimes be accompanied by a train and different types of clips were used to keep it off the ground out of doors. (Ewing, 2014)
The skirts were decorated differently, and some had flares at the bottom with lace, some were plain, and some had decorations like pintucks or pleats. For my skirt I went with a plain design with two pleats in the back to even out the extra fabric around the waist and to create some more texture to a rather plain and simple design.
My skirt is a rather simple walking skirt and has two pleats at the back to gather in some of the access fabric from the waistline. I chose not to decorate it in any way as both the blouse, with pintucks, gathering and lace details, and the bodice with pleats and lace are busy as it is. The belt is also decorated with lace. So decorating the skirt was an aesthetic choice I made based on those factors and the design.
Fig.5 Spring fashion, 1906, for walking (Ewing, 2014)
Both skirt in this fashion plate from 1906 reflect a lot of the simplicity I chose to have with my skirt not being decorated in any other way than the two pleats at the back by the closing.
Neckwear in the Edwardian era was a big part of an outfit for everyday war of for festivities. It would make a plain blouse without a collar stand out when you added a lace collar or a collar in general.
A blouse could be decorated with different types of neckwear.
The Edwardian collar they wore during daytime were usually high and thin. They reached to the chin in the front and to the hairline in the back. Lace became a popular way to decorate clothes during the Edwardian period and this also reflected onto the different kinds of collars. The collars were never made out of pleated drapery as pleated drapery made the neck look thick, whereas why the collars were high and thin to flatter the neck rather than hide it.
For my blouse I chose to go with a decorated small collar, I attached lace from the original fabric to the collar by hand. On my bodice I have the same sized collar but without the lace and with a piped seam going around the top edge.
Fig.6 Collars, stocks and jabots. Eaton’s Spring and Summer Catalogue, 1907 (Lina, 2018)
Fig. 7 & 8
First pintuck samples I made. Fig. 7 is pintucks in calico and fig. 8 is pintucks in the top fabric. Both samples consist of pintucks that are 1cm wide.
Fig. 9 & 10
Fig. 9 is small pintucks done in the test fabric by using a pintuck foot for my sewing machine that is 3mm wide. They were made with the pintuck foot and a twin needle. Fig 10 is the cuff sample made for the first fitting.
Fig. 11 & 12
Fig. 11 & 12 is the first sample blouse I made with the 1cm pintucks. We decided that we wanted smaller pintucks.
Fig. 13 & 14
Fig 13 & 14 is the toil blouse I made for the first fitting with the smaller pintucks. As you can see the pintucks moved the fabric quit a lot and the blouse ended up not being entirely straight at the cf. This would later be the same problem with the finished blouse, but I solved the issue by gathering the button strand until I was straight again, and therefore making the gathered button strand a part of the blouse design.
Anon (2019). Edwardian – 1900-1917. Truly Victorian [online]. Available from: https://trulyvictorian.info/index.php/extras/timeline-of-victorian-clothing/edwardian-1900-1917/ [Accessed 21 October 2020].
Anon (n.d.). Edwardian Era Collars | Daywear Collars, Evening Wear Collars. Victorian Era [online]. Available from: http://victorian-era.org/edwardian-era-collars.html [Accessed 5 December 2020a].
Anon (n.d.). Edwardian-blouse-paper-Suzanne-final-1mmkv1j.pdf. [online]. Available from: https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.brighton.ac.uk/dist/3/4024/files/2018/08/Edwardian-blouse-paper-Suzanne-final-1mmkv1j.pdf [Accessed 30 November 2020b].
Arnold, J. (1977). Patterns of Fashion 2. Macmillian London Limited [online]. [Accessed 12 October 2020].
Ewing, E. (2014a). History of 20th Century Fashion. Pavilion Books.
Ewing, E. (2014b). History of 20th Century Fashion. Pavilion Books.
Gernsheim, A. (1981). Victorian & Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey. Courier Corporation.
Hunnisett, J. (1991). Period costume for stage and screen 1800-1909. Players press [online]. [Accessed 12 October 2020].
Lina (2018). Edwardian Neckwear: Collars, Jabots & Fichus. Sew Historically [online]. Available from: http://www.sewhistorically.com/edwardian-neckwear-collars-jabots-fichus/ [Accessed 3 November 2020].
Milford-Cottam, D. (2014). Edwardian Fashion. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Monet, D. (n.d.). Fashion History: Edwardian Style of the Late 1890s–1914 [online]. Available from: https://bellatory.com/fashion-industry/FashionHistoryEdwardianFashionTrends1890s1914 [Accessed 5 December 2020].
Rowland, S. (2016). Making Edwardian Costumes for Women. Crowood.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (n.d.). Suit | American [online]. Available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157999 [Accessed 5 November 2020a].
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (n.d.). Blouse | probably French [online]. Available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157293 [Accessed 5 November 2020b].
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (n.d.). Mme. Langer | Blouse | American [online]. Available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/157199 [Accessed 5 November 2020c].
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (n.d.). 1902-1909, Plate 119 - Costume Institute Fashion Plates - Digital Collections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries [online]. Available from: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll12/id/12674/rec/3 [Accessed 15 November 2020d].
Thieme, O.C. (1988). The Art of Dress in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras. The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts. Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of The Wolfsonian-FIU. Vol. 10. pp. 14–27 [online]. https://doi.org/10.2307/1504015.
Unknown (2003). Fashion In The Edwardian Era: Part I - The Ladies Treasury of Costume and Fashion [online]. Available from: http://www.tudorlinks.com/treasury/articles/view1900.html [Accessed 27 October 2020].
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