Edwardian Gown

We all have different things to make our day, as of me, my aunt just made my decade, sending me an Edwardian gown from ca 1904. Whoever owned it probably grew out of it and decided to let it out on her own. She never finished the job, and now it's mine (my precious....). I have documented all the different pieces (yes, the butchered it), and I am going to piece it all together, and restore it to its original state. It really is excuisite, I think it must have been a wedding dress, back then. It has the typical Edwardian structure, which is a seethrough layer of netting and lace on top of a coloured base. The skirt therefore is actually two skirts, both equally elaborate. The base is a vibrating yellow, it has two rows of tucks at the starting mid-calf, and it has a row of accordion-pleating at the bottom. It has a few stains, which I hope the overskirt will be able to hide. As the fabric is more than a hundred years old, I am reluctant to cleaning it. One never knows how the fabric will react to it. The top layer is ecru-coloured netting with lace inserts. It has narrow vertical stripes of pin-tucks, several rows of piping, and two rows of gathered netting and lace also starting at midcalf. Both skirts are trained, the ecru skirt seems to be longer in the back then the yellow one, and I've begun to wonder if the yellow one has been altered. Maybe the owner didn't want it to get dirty?

The bodice is very pretty, and also the part of the dress that needs most work done. It consists of a yellow structural bodice, and an ecru draped overbodice.The lace on the ecru bodice was tattered, but that was easily fixed. The real problem is mounting the two layers together. The infidel owner has cut the sleeves off the bodice instead of ripping the seames, which means there is no seam allowence. That troubles me. I haven't decided how to deal with that problem yet, but I'm leaning towards using a length of bias binding to join the sleeves to the torso. The neck is also a problem, I have no idea how it looked originally, I only know that there is a standing collar with hooks on it that needs a base to be mounted onto. I've looked closely at the neckline of the bodice, and I can't se a seamline, nor loops for the hooks. Which leads me to think that there must have been a binding along the neckline, with loops for the hooks, and it has most likely been cut off. Which again meens, there is no seam-allowence. Whoever did this was certainly not a seamstress.

So I have my work cut out for me, that's for sure. I'll do the skirt first, as that is the easiest part, and then start assembling the bodice. I will post the pictures as soon as possible.