Francis Wheatley- 1786- British- The Rustic Lover- Watercolour with black ink over graphite- Yale Centre for British Art
Shift
Under Petticoat
Stays
Bum Roll
Outer Petticoat
Apron
Fichu
18th Century Women's costume
This was one of my largest projects. The brief was to recreate a similar garmet to that in the painting, but with an autumnal colour scheeme. The costume were for a crowd that were all going to be a similar colour scheme. The costume had 7 different elements all listed above. I carried out research to try and use accurate patterns to construct the garments, and used museum examples to pick the most appropriate fabrics.
I used linen fabrics for the outer petticoat and stays to create an accurate look, but used cottons on the other layers to reduce costs. For the shift and apron I wanted to create some natural autumnal browns and oranges. In order to create a light shade I hand dyded the fabrics, with extensive testing before hand to insure a perfect shade.