glittersweet | The elements of modern dressmaking for the amateur and professional dressmaker (1894) (Reply)

by michaela de bruce, August 10, 2014

The elements of modern dressmaking for the amateur and professional dressmaker (1894)

Author: Davis, Jeanette E; Holahan, Cora M., ed

Subject: Dressmaking

Publisher: New York, The Cassell publishing co

Possible copyright status: The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item.

Language: English

Call number: 10088784

Digitizing sponsor: The Library of Congress

Book contributor: The Library of Congress

Collection: library_of_congress; americana

Full catalog record: MARCXML

This book has an editable web page on Open Library.

It’s in pdf now!!!!! OMG!!!! i LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this book. I use the pattern diagram for my Victorian bodices and it talks about things totally not thought of. Like how to smooth the layers of the bodice from under the side of the bust to over, and then pin the fronts to shape. This is because the lining won’t stretch as much as say a wool shell and this makes the fabrics work together.

It also talks about feather boning which is actually made from feather quills!

by michaela de bruce, August 10, 2014

A word about perfect systems of cutting, which will do

away with any necessity for trying-on, may not be out of place:

every dressmaker hopes to find one, and learns system after

system in the vain endeavour. If such a thing were possible,

tailors would have discovered it before this ; the costliness

of the material they work upon, and the difficulty of making

alterations upon firm cloth, as compared with soft dress

materials, would ensure their straining every nerve to master

knowledge so very desirable and essential ; and the really

marvellous fitting without trying-on which is done by many

dressmakers as well as tailors would seem to declare that the

knowledge has been mastered ; but those same tailors and

dressmakers know that the risk of alteration being required

has always to be faced, in spite of careful measuring, of

a pattern bodice at hand to compare with, and of the most

minute care having been taken with every step of the work

from first to last. It is well for less experienced workers to

be very careful and painstaking, and not to expect too much

from the cutting only. Perfect cutting must be followed by

perfect making-up if everything is to be perfect throughout,

and such perfection cannot be ensured as a matter of course

to every worker, be she clever and experienced or altogether

otherwise, simply by the cutting-out.