For my 1928 Robe de Style, I knew I needed side hoops, or else the elegant Robe de Style loses its oompf.
So here is my saga of trying to create the oompf!
BASKET-LIKE
The understructure required for the Robe de Style shape is a set of 18th century style panniers on a smaller scale than their predecessors.
Jean Lanvin, who designed the Robe de Style, hearkened back to the 18th century in creating this elegant gown that could be worn by any body shape of any age, to offset the popular flapper fashions best suited to a straight-line figure.
A common descriptor in my research was the word, “basket-like.”
DRAFTING MY 1920S PANNIERS
After a lot of vague research, I created what I thought might give me the proper silhouette.
While wearing my gown, I measured from the top of the dropped waistline to the top of my knee for the length.
For the width, I measured how much length it would take to do a semi-circle next to my hips, to create the proper silhouette.
All I want to ultimately do is extend my hip line.
SEWING PROCESS
From these measurements I cut out some fabric, so that when folded over they would be these dimensions.
Into each of the channels I created, I inserted leftover reed from my 18th century stays project.
To maintain the semi-circle shape, I added fabric to the hoops, that forced it into a semi-circle.
The result is below, with pins at the top for securing to the garment.
TESTING THE HOOPS
When I tried them on with my gown, the silhouette didn’t look right, so I added an additional hoop. Two pictures above I had 4 casings per each hoop, but only boned three of them. In the photo below, I boned the other casings and was much more pleased with the resulting silhouette.
The weight of the hoops when pinned to the inside of my gown’s waistline, pulled down my gown in a most unpleasing manner.
(I unpinned the hoops from the gown and repinned them to the tops of my pantyhose. The gown looked much better!)
While I was wearing my gown, the framing showed through a bit but wasn’t too obvious. It seemed quite period correct from all my research.
They hang well and do not flap around at all.
With the weight of the skirts surrounding them and the panniers pressing against my hips and legs, they stay in place quite well.
A wee bit of movement but I’m sure that’s normal and to be expected. Nothing seemed odd while I wore my gown.
For more photos, check my Flickr set.
COMMENTS FROM MY OLD BLOG
MrsSM-February 28, 2014 at 11:55 PM-Good work figuring all of that out! We worked on a similar project using PVC tubing for the channels–not authentic, but effective (and awkward to work with).