The nice thing about my habit of wearing my costumes as clothing is that I apparently look very comfortable. Also, I rarely have large piles of repair work after an event. However, this time my daughter wore her 18th century gown for the first time for any significant length of time and so we have a few repairs.
1. Her stays are bones with split reed. She doesn't need a lot of shaping, just a nudge for the silhouette. However some of the bones poked her.
2. As she is very slim (waist 28 and hips 31) she has a problem of her skirts sliding down from her waist.
3. Her paniers are also made of split reed. one side broke all three bones about an inch or so in and the other side warped. I think this may be due to riding in the warm car with seatbelts - but what's a girl to do?
4. My corset - I kept getting poked by a bone at the back waist so after examining it I realized that I never embroidered over the bottoms of the bones as I wasn't sure if I wanted to shorten it again. I don't think I'll need (or want) to shorten it if I get the bones embroidered properly so they don't move.
Solutions:
1. I am planning on padding her corset with some flannel below the waist. This will do two things, bulk her up below the waist and pad any errant bones.
2. .Victoria will be adding hooks to her overdress and bars to her petticoat.
3. I'm pondering what to do for the paniers. I have LOADS of sprung steel so I may replace the reeds with steel.
If you have any advice, please comment. I'd love some different ideas.
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