The last one isn't supposed to be that long. The skirt is supposed to attach to an undress which seems superfluous to me so I just attached it to the top. The end result is the dress is quite long but it wasn't so bad when I put on the shoes so I think I'll keep it that way.
According to my old sewing books, there were two reasons for the underdress, one being to make the skirt hang correctly and not drag down the bodice. The other was cleanliness; the underdress protected the bodice from sweat and body oils and if the skirt and bodice materials were not machine washable, the seamstress could sew snaps around the bottom of the underdress so it could easily be removed for washday.
ReplyDeleteActually, it just occurred to me that there's a third reason, a lady could have two or three different bodices to go with the skirt. Versatility in dress was a big deal in the days when a middle-class woman might own only four or five dresses. She needed all the little artifices she could to make those do the work of (and look like) nine or ten different outfits.
You are a wealth of information!
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