1660s Ivory Silk Taffeta Bodice

Historical Garment Recreation (October 2022 - January 2023)

HIGHLY COMMENDED AWARD | THE COSTUME SOCIETY’S PATTERNS OF FASHION AWARD 2023

Project Brief

As part of my studies for my final year, I chose to enter The Costume Society’s Patterns of Fashion competition, and not only was I chosen as one of their 2023 finalists, I won their Highly Commended Award and came runner-up on the day of the competition, judged by two wonderfully esteemed and talented costume designers, Michele Clapton and Alex Fordham.

The piece I historically reconstructed is a 1660s Bodice, the original being held at Claydon House as part of The Verney Collection. Entirely hand sewn, it is fully boned, lined and covered in ivory silk taffeta, decorated with strips of pinked ivory silk satin with hand-woven ivory braiding. Alongside the intricacy of the decoration, the sleeves were a fascinating piece of historical engineering that I had to understand. Made up of three layers, with the outer being slashed vertically in regular intervals to form the panes the decoration sits on. Strangely, I found it useful to research 17th-century menswear alongside womenswear in an attempt to better understand this technique, and how to reproduce it.

Even though it took months for my fingers to recover from over 50,000 stitches and a total of 475 hours of hand-sewn construction. This competition has pushed me to make what I believe is my most intricate and beautiful piece of work to date. And I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to bring this historical garment to life again, and incredibly grateful to The Costume Society for giving me the chance to do so.

Project Length

A 14-week unit.

To read more about this project visit the following links:

https://costumesociety.org.uk/awards/the-patterns-of-fashion-award

https://costumesociety.org.uk/awards/winners/patterns-of-fashion-award-winners-2023

https://aub.ac.uk/latest/beth-lacey-and-remi-lever-making-the-patterns-of-fashion-awards-finals

Construction PDF & complete PDF of final images below.