Amy's Regency Gown

I made this regency ball gown, a size 6 in a lovely embroidered silk.

Regency Half Robe

Today I started work on a regency-era half robe.

Out come my two favourite books - Costumes in Detail and Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1. Both of these books are indispensable to a costumer's collection.


Left is the 1795-1800 half robe as illustrated in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1.

Underneath the half robe will be a round robe (or round gown) that is presented in Norah Waugh's book, The Cut of Women's Clothes. Not being a frilly sort of person, I plan to leave the frills off for now.

Regency Gowns

I had a shock yesterday. I filled in a calculator to see if it was profitable to sell my regency gowns. I found that if I wanted to earn a base wage I should be selling them for approx. $400. I couldn't believe it!
I've already had to go and raise the prices on all my garments because of shipping rates getting the fabric here. I felt horrible doing this but it is not fair to my family to make these beautiful gowns for a loss. Don't worry, I'm still keeping the costs down as much as I'm able.
I've re-vamped my website to reflect the new prices and am adding new gowns to the collection to include ones made using the patterns from Janet Arnold's 'Patterns of Fashion'.
Last night I put a few up on ebay, for a much reduced rate than normal to see if I can catch a few sales while I have time up my sleeve.