1910 Princess Line Dress

For years now, buried somewhere on my to-do list, has been a 1910s dress based on an outfit that Rebecca Pidgeon wears in The Winslow Boy (1999). I found a blog post I wrote about it back in 2010, so it has been quite a while that I've been thinking about this. Well, to celebrate the Downton Abbey Costume exhibit happening at Winterthur this year, I figured it was time to actually make this.

Inspiration image:

After staring at the inspiration costume, I realized that maybe that much gathered fabric right at my waist might not be a good idea. I've tried that look before, and it did not end well. So I looked around for an alternative design that would give a similar feel but eliminated that gathering. I hit upon a dress from Past Patterns, which is a copy of an original 1910 Butterick Pattern.

Here is my mockup. There will be a long pleated flounce that extends down to at least ankles, but I did not bother including that on the mockup.






I am also taking inspiration from a couple other sources. This is a page from The Great War: Styles & Patterns of the 1910s by R. L. Shep:


This is from the Kyoto Costume Institute Fashion book:


And this is a garment I saw at the Museum of London (more info here):


My planned fabric is a blue striped cotton: