In case I ever attend a Jane Austen or other type of Regency event, I wanted to sew a spencer to wear with my Regency gown.
MILITARY SPENCER JACKETS
The Victoria and Albert Museum documents that military fashions were popular in Britain during the Regency Era due to the Napoleonic Wars, which perfectly fit our upcoming Becoming History presentation.
On ladies’ garments, such as the bodice of the spencer and pelisse, regimental details were feminized to represent the military influence rather than to precisely replicate the pattern.
Because I’ve sewn many military regimentals for my son from various eras of history, I thought it would be fun to sew a regimental styled spencer for myself!
The Kyoto Costume Institute has in their collection a redingote, French for riding coat, with military detail that they identify as Brandenburg Style, expressed in the wrapped buttons and braid that decorate the front opening.
This style was inspired from the coats of Napoleon’s Hussars, who were light calvary.
FABRIC
For the fashion fabric I chose a black cotton velvet and for the lining I chose a purple cotton with soft drape.
PATTERN
For the pattern I used Period Impressions.
I initially chose the pattern because it offered a variety of styles that closely matched the extant images I found.
Although I do not know how historically accurate it is, and the sleeve heads were mismatched and quite a bear to align properly into the shoulder of the gown, it happily wears quite comfortably.
BRAIDING
I planned the braiding based on several extant examples.
I also made this functional which will be shown below, again based on an extant military style spencer.
On one side the loop was not sewn down so that I could loop it around the button on the other side.
RUCHING TO RESEMBLE EPAULETTES
I added self-fabric ruching along the shoulders to symbolize epaulettes.
I started with a peter pan collar from the pattern which ended up being too tight for me.
After seeing a ruched collar with ruffles on an extant example, I ruched the peter pan collar then added a ruffle on top of and around the sides of that and it looked much like the extant spencer!
PEPLUM
The back has a peplum.
Considerably shortening the ties from the pattern because they were too cumbersome, I cut them down and pinned them to where I needed to make the spencer fit me best.
VELVET TRIM
Also, I put the velvet trim along the curve of the back seam line like I found in my key source image.
SELF-FABRIC BUTTONS
After looking at extent spencers I created self-fabric covered buttons to decorate the small bands as well as the front.
