Personal Thoughts:

Why is there no 'very very very hard why did I attempt this I am crazy pants' category?

Made for / worn by Claire (Contessa).

The dress is silk taffeta painted with Gutta resist method. All the gold brocade parts were traced with resist and then the grey / silver was painted into the pattern by hand. It was about 6 days of painting total. I had a hard time choosing fabric since it's clearly a heavy brocade in the show but most heavy brocades commercially available end up looking chunky in gowns. The choice to create fabric was a little bit crazy in the end but Claire and I decided it was worth going for it.

The dress has a 4 foot train and no back waist seam making the back center panel a total of about 110 inches from nape to hem (just over 3 yards long) at its longest. The side panels are curved and pleated into the bodice piece. I tried to recreated the pleating from the show as best as possible.

I flatted the silk to a poly cotton, added bones to the bodice, and then flatted the side skirt panels with baby flannel to give the pleats body. The cap sleeves are silk and baby flannel over bias quilted french canvas re-enforced with stripped ridgeline bones zig-zab stitched into the edges. The 'hip armor' is done with the same method except with industrial felt and laser cut leather on the face.

Underneath is a quilted coutil corset with embroidered eyelets taken off of an Elizabethan style pattern which I altered to add a small amount of bust curve and no hip tabs. I quilted two layers of embroidered coutil together and used spring steel bones throughout.

There is a full petticoat with train made of two layers of poly cotton. Each layers has a net ruffle and cotton ruffle all lace edged with a horsehair hem. The petticoat was a bout 25 yards of cotton when all was said and done. I used a 1910 style walking skirt pattern for the body of the petticoat then added about as much ruffle as I physically could. The bottom layer is the hem size times 2.5 and the top ruffles was about 3 times the hem size.

The final piece was a soft panier to give the dress the proper hip shape. I cut three cotton circles in descending sizes and flatted them to net. I put 1/4 inch horsehair in the hem of each skirt, finished it off with lace, then gathered them to a beauve waist band. I put 97% of the gather on both of the sides leaving the back and front flat. The whole piece only came to the side front seams on each side of the dress and was worn over the corset and petticoat.

Phew!

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