Examination gown - The Idea

For my final tailoring exam I wanted to make a period dress. There are certain things that has to be present in the item you want to make for the exam, like it has to linked to the place where you did your apprenticeship in the last term. I was, and still am, working at a bridle atalie, Marianne Carøe, where we make dresses of high quality materials, like silk and cotton lace - no man made fabrics. So my dress had to consist of silk and be a wedding dress. I also had to show the techniques I've learned. But luckily for me, I spend 4 weeks at Cosprob in London were they make period clothing/costume for stage and screen... I think most know the BBC mini-series 'Pride & Prejudice' from 1995? or perhaps 'Downtown Abbey'? maybe 'Sleepy Hollow' is better... really I could go on and on, but because I spend those weeks there I could incorporate it into my final design, plus use some of the period techniques I've learned through the years.

Because I had to link the design to my masters work I chose to do a natural form gown, a simple one. I was inspired by a gown I  found looking around the wast, unending, plains of the internet.

 

I sadly don't know where I found the picture any more, as I forgot to save a link to the site, so if you know, I would love to link to the museum.

It was the simple lines that drew me to the dress and I would love to one day reproduce it. It's simply stunning. 



My first sketch of the dress I wanted to make was rejected, so I had to make a new one.

The first design.

The final design.

As you can see the first one is looking very much like the picture of the blue dress and in the final design I have removed all the decoration of the dress and made the button closure go all the way to the floor. Even this design was almost not approved, but in the end they said yes, because my master said that she didn't see a problem with me making this dress if it was what I wanted to do.

And so the tale begins.... To be continued!