An open robe from the 1790s

Even before I hade finished my white muslin directoire gown I knew that I wanted to make an open robe to wear with it.
The fabric are cotton curtains that I bought on Tradera, a Swedish auction site 12 years ago or so, intending to make a slightly earlier 18th century outfit. Obviously that didn't happen, though I did make a petticoat that I wore as normal clothes quite a lot around 2006 or so. That one has long ago been sent to the thrift shop, but luckily I had lots left.

Open robes from teh 1790s can be found in many museum collections, these are a few examples:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, silk.

Manchester Art Gallery, printed cotton

 Victoria&Albert Museum, printed cotton

 The Kyoto Costume Institute, printed cotton

Snowshill Wade costume collection, printed cotton

From this sample it appears that in most cases the printed cotton open robes had whole bodices, rather than just the bands meeting under the bust, which we see on the gowns from silk. So I guess mine isn't typical, though we really have too small a sample to say much.

Fashion prints also show open robes, though cotton ones are less common there than in collections of preserved dress. One reason for this is that it appears that open robes were mostly worn as evening dress.

There are other examples however, like these from the period 1794-97

Studying the preserved examples, the gowns clearly show the development from 18th century fashion. Many of them are cut en forreau, that is: the back piece goes all the way from the neck to the hem, and it is pleated to shape. This would have required someone else pleating the fabric in place on me, so I was gld to find examples of pleated bodices which had a waist seam all the way round.

Unfortunately the pattern repeat of the fabric wasn't small enough to make that cool effect with symmetrical patterns on the pleats. Or it would have required some creative pieceing that I didn't feel that I was really up to. So it has pleats, but they could have been much prettier. Next time, if I make another one,

I made a new cap and a new hat. The cap is basically a gathered circle sewn to a band and with pleated ribbon sewn to it, and a green ribbon to tie. The hat is from IKEA. I removed soem of the braid, making the brim smaller, then I dampened it and shaped it slightly adn when it was dry I decorated it with artificial flowers from candle decorations bought at a thrift store and ribbons.