Floral Francaise, Part I
In 2022, in the early days of my dive into the 18th century, I fell in love with the most gorgeous reproduction cotton block print fabric on Etsy . It is based on the gown above, but I didn't know that when I saw it and immediately pictured a robe a la Francaise. This is why, when I discovered the images of the original housed at LACMA, I was gobsmacked. How often does your imagination dream up the extant garment? While I knew I wanted this project to happen, I was still unsure and intimidated by the amount of work that would go into a garment like this. I put it on my "someday" list and moved ahead in creating more 18th century pieces, growing my skills and expanding my comfort zone with more ambitious new creations and revisiting items I'd already made to improve them. As I completed the trim for my caracao and petticoat (read about it here), it felt natural for my next project to be even more ambitious. And then, a friend told me about an 18th century ball coming u...