The summer of Rococo: Riding Habit

After all that planning in my head, already had a shirt (two shirts in fact), an underpetticoat (I will write about that a bit later), an over petticoat and a waistcoat, and the nost complicated piece of the ensemble, the biggest bite was the riding jacket itself.

The question of the pattern already popped up, so let's talk about that. I knew exactly what type of Riding Habit I want to make, I have a Pinterest Board full of paintings, original pieces and modern reconstrucions. 

This type is very popular among reenactors, but it is more like late 1780, and no panniers underneath, 

This one os much closer, to what I had in mind, but still a bit later and much less fancier, than what I imagined.

The style of this was more like it... 

Now we are talking.... in terms of decoration... However, I wanted silver in place of all these golds.

The only problem, that though I combed through my sources of historical patterns, my options were more than limited. I do have the new edition of the 18th century volume of Patterns of fashion also the he Nora Waughn book, but I was not about to start enlarging the one in either of them.

JP Ryan used to have this style, but now, only the slightly later style is available (and that is rather expensive), which left me with...

Yes. Reconstructing History, which is notorious in costuming circles. But I still thought, I much rather use a ready-made one, since you need to fit the heck out of them anyway, and I worked with RH patterns, so what could go wrong??? 

My first step was get in contact with Kasia, whom I know from Instagram, and I remembered, she made a similar Riding Habit from the RH pattern last year, and I asked her, what should I watch out for, and she did make a collection of her stories about the topic, where I got a few points. 

Of course, seeing all the possible variations, I had to think about the decorations, and a few other decisions (folding collar? standing coller? no collar at all? the pockets should be vertical or horizontal? The decoration should be soutache, lace or braid? etc, etc, etc.)

Thankfully I already decided, that the piece of plaid linen I picked up to make "something modern", would work perfectly as lining.

Of course, I had to think about the decorations, and a few other decisions (folding collar? standing coller? no collar at all? the pockets should be vertical or horizontal?), 

Thankfully, I already decided, when I did the waistcoat, that the pice of plaid linen I picked up for "making something modern, finally" would work perfectly as a lining. 

I knew I wanted the light blue with silver, so I dug out all the silver lace, soutache and whatnot I had. 

Started with the pockets, and I used the cheat technique I thought up when I made Norbert's 18th century waistcoat: sew the buttonholes with the machine, that held together all the layers, and provided a template, a line to follow, when I went through the thing with handstitches. Later, from thecomments of a FB post I learned, that many customer does this, but as Cassandra Danz wrote in one of her gardening books (paraphrasing), the one who invents the wheel nowadays is no less genious than the one who did originally. Admiteddly, slower, but not less genious.

 

Stitching through all those layers (including a taffeta) requires strength... or tools.

The decoration around the buttonholes and the pocket-flaps were also handstitched. 

Now, I needed to make the pockets. 18th century pockets with flaps were sewn differently than they are today, when you incorporate the edging and the flaps. No, you do make a hole, with the pocket itself, and then sew the flap above it.

I used the same buttonhole technique and silver braid around the cuffs, and then had to make a decision about the front buttonholes, and front edge. Buttonholes got the same treatment with and extra loop, and for the endge I used the lace-y braid I received as a birthday present from Anna, a couple of years ago, 

Things went kind of smoothly until this point, though no matter how much I took out of the waist, there was still too much fabric left form my sway back. 

But then I had to sew in the sleeves.Which, despite looking all right in the mock up, just did not want to stit right. I took those darned things out at least five times, I was starting to get afraid, that I'll ruin the fabric, and cried through one night. At one point I was ready to throw it out of the window (of my tenth floor flat).  I bet no effing AI can do that (cry over some messed up sleeves), now, can it? 

At the end, I took the sleeves out one more time, thinking that at the worst, I'll go in the waistcoat only, and with a masterstroke I turned the hole thing, almost 45 degree. It still has some crease, but it works fine now. 

The last ting was to make a few dozen covered buttons, and sew them on. 

Fabric: I Love Textile

Modelled photos: Bodeszphoto