I plan to wear my 1840’s dress at Dickens themed events, which are often in winter – meaning it will be freezing cold. Therefore I needed a warm coat to go with the outfit!
I really love those large, fur trimmed coats / cloaks / mantles! I am not sure what to call them though. According to this website it is a ‘pelisse’, but I find a lot more search results when I use the word ‘pardessus’. On some other sites it is called a ‘paletot’, though, so… I guess nobody really knows.
Thing is – I’d rather not use real fur. But as most of the Dickens events in the Netherlands are not very historically accurate, the outfit didn’t need to be 100% historically accorate either, so I went for faux fur.
When I started sewing the coat, I had not yet found the right name for it, so I wasn’t able to find a pattern either and I had to figure out how to draw the pattern myself. I’m not entirely happy about how it turned out at the back; I assume I should have drawn it less shaped, and more as a straight line.
Also, I think I’m going to change the fur lining at the neckline, because it stands up so very high at the edge. Perhaps if I don’t make it go around the corner, it will look better.
Regardless of whether I created the right shape, it looks weird on my mannequin anyway because there are no layers underneath to fill it up. So here’s, finally, a photo of me wearing the entire outfit: corded petticoat, dress, bonnet, and mantle!
Time spent: just under 19 hours (Not including drafting the pattern, making a mock-up and the few hours I spent picking the sewn-in fluff out of the seams with a needle…)
Costs: I don’t exactly know. The faux fur was €15 (the piece had been sitting in my closet for years waiting for a good project), the flannel on the inside was a leftover from another project, and I can’t find anywhere what the blue wool (which I did buy specifically for this) cost me when I bought it last year. I did spend another €5,25 for three toggle closures, which I tucked away on the inside.
Related Posts
