Digital Download 101.8-18, 1771-1785 English Gown
Updated 2017 with 8 new pages of 18th c focused sewing instructions and photographs.
Drafting this pattern for the staff of the Sumter County Museum for their use in interpreting dress accurately during Back Country Days in SC was the inspiration behind creating the Fig Leaf Pattern line. All patterns are taken from extant garments in either private or museum collections. How the original was cut and sewn is recorded in detail so that you can recreate the garment in period techniques. Included is how to update the gown from the 1770s to the new look of the 1790s, a sewing technique many women used.
The original open robe gown was worn by Mrs. Elizabeth Allen Deas (1742-1802). Born in 1742 as the only child of William and Mary Keating Allen, Elizabeth grew up on a plantation in the greater Charleston, South Carolina area. She married John Deas in 1759. They had eleven children, ten boys and one girl. During the years from 1769 to 1771, the Deas family traveled to Europe and England. This dress may be of British origin. Elizabeth died in 1802 and is buried near Charleston, South Carolina.
The gown is hand sewn of lightweight ivory-striped lustring or figured silk. The bodice and sleeves are lined with linen. The bodice is closely fitted and was originally stiffened with two walebone stays set at center back. A regular pattern of pin holes along the center front edges suggests that the dress originally was pinned or stitched closed. The separately cut skirt is set into the bodice with half inch box pleats. The sleeves are three-quarter length with a vertical dart at the back of the elbow and a horizontal dart on the front of the sleeve at the crook of the arm. The sleeves are finished at the elbow with box-pleated self-trims.