#robe à la française

[frostedmagnolias]

robe à la française

c. 1740

Musée des Arts Décoratifs

[history-of-fashion]

1770-1775 Robe à la française, consisting of an overcoat and skirt

silk

(Centraal Museum, Utrecht)

[heaveninawildflower]

Woman’s Dress (Robe à la française). France (1760s-1770s).

Silk taffeta.

Images and text information courtesy LACMA.

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Purple Silk Robe à la Française, 1770-1775, English.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

[resplendentoutfit]

Robe à la Française, Part II

Fig. 1: Robe à la française • 1730-1740 • © Stanislas Wolff / Paris Musées, Palais Galliera

When I was researching the Rococo fashion era, I collected so many images and I have to share some of my favorites. It's not so much the style of the Robe à la Française that I like (though I do very much like the box pleats and drape of the back) but the fabrics, colors, and patterns. Fig. 1 shows a gorgeous print in a beautiful color combination. Such a print for a dress today wouldn't work very well, as contemporary dresses don't have the volume of the 18th century styles, nor the lovely draping in the back of the Robe à la Française.

The Robe à la Française was derived from the loose negligee sacque dress of the earlier part of the century, which was pleated from the shoulders at the front at the back.

Metropolitan Museum of Art • 1760-70 • Silk, cotton

The silhouette was achieved with a funnel-shaped bust joining wide rectangular skirts. The wide skirts were supported by panniers and hoops constructed from cane, metal, and baleen. Fig. 2 shows a portrait sitter wearing a Robe à la Française with a contrasting underskirt.

Fig. 2: Artist unknown (British). Mrs. Cadoux, ca. 1770

[empirearchives]

18th century dresses at Malmaison in France. Current exhibition from the Château de Bois-Préau: 1769, Corsica at the Birth of Napoleon Bonaparte

For several years, the National Museum of the House of Bonaparte in Ajaccio, Napoleon's birthplace where his family lived since the end of the 15th century, has been exploring with talent the history of Corsican society, the architecture of patrician houses, their furnishings and the art of living in Corsica in the 18th century.

For the first time, the synthesis of this work will be presented at the National Museum of châteaux des Malmaison and Bois-Préau on the ground floor of the newly restored Château de Bois-Préau.

[gogmstuff]

Some more 1780s big hair fashion -

Top left  ca. 1780 Robe à la française (location ?). From fripperiesandfobs.tumblr.com-page/2 1548X1146.

Top right  ca. 1780 Robe à l'anglaise (Museo de la Moda - Santiago, Chile). From 18thcenturylove.tumblr.com-tagged-robe+a+l'anglaise-page-2 1678X1250.

Second row  ca. 1780 Four views of robe à la Polonaise (Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City, New York, USA). From their Web site 2893X1315.

Third row  ca. 1780 Robe à la Polonaise (Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York City, New York, USA). From their Web site 900X1200.

Fourth row  1781 The Tea Garden by ? (British Museum - London, UK). From their Web site 3968X5518.

Fifth row  1781 (probable exh' date) Adélaïde Genet, Madame Auguié (1758-1794), sister of Mme. Campan by Anne Vallayer-Coster (Sotheby's - 8Jul09 auction Lot 41). From their Web site; fixed spots w Pshop 3428X4290.

Sixth row  1781 Ernestine Fredérique, Princess de Croy by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun (Nationalmuseum - Stockholm, Sweden). From Wikimedia 1067X1349.

Seventh row  1783 Madame Charles Mitoire, née Christine-Geneviève Bron (1760-1842), avec ses enfants by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (Getty Museum - Los Angeles, California, USA). From their Web site; fixed spots & edges w Pshop 2332X2965

Eighth row  ca. 1785 Princesse de Lamballe by French school (location ?). From servimg.com-view-18669219-6356 812X973.

[theodoreangelos]

Dress – robe à la française (late 1770s; fabric 1750-60s) The Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI), photo by Takashi Hatakeyama 公益財団法人 京都服飾文化研究財団, 撮影いただきました畠山崇 様 Kyōto Fukushoku Bunka Kenkyū Zaidan Ivory Lyons silk striped brocade with floral pattern of chenille; self-fabric trim; matching petticoat; stomacher of matching fabric with flower ornaments of chenille; sabot sleeves. Detailed description

• Dress (“robe à la française”). Date: Late 1770’s (fabric: 1750-60’s) Place of origin: France

[frostedmagnolias]

Robe à la française

c. 1770 - 1775

Centraal Museum, Utrecht

[mlle-erica]

Florence très parisienne élégante dans sa robe moulante.

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Blue Quilted Silk Robe à la Française, ca. 1750, European.

Met Museum.

[resplendentoutfit]

Rococo Fashion: Robe à la Française

The robe à la française was derived from the loose negligee sacque dress of the earlier part of the 18th century, which was pleated from the shoulders at the front and the back. The silhouette, composed of a funnel-shaped bust feeding into wide rectangular skirts, was inspired by Spanish designs of the previous century and allowed for expansive amounts of textiles with delicate Rococo curvilinear decoration.

The wide skirts, which were often open at the front to expose a highly decorated underskirt, were supported by panniers created from padding and hoops of different materials such as cane, baleen or metal.

The robes à la française are renowned for the beauty of their textiles, the cut of the back employing box pleats and skirt decorations, known as robings, which showed endless imagination and variety.

Jean-François de Troy (French, 1679–1752) • La Déclaration d'amour • 1731

Robe à la Française • 18th century (probably 1770s) • silk

[jsebouvi]

La vie en rose version 1

[empirearchives]

I had no idea this meme painting was made by Jacques-Louis David 😂😂

Also, he made it the year Napoleon was born, 1769

[gogmstuff]

Early 1730s dresses (from top to bottom) -

1730 Tea Party at Lord Harrington's by C. Phillips detail (Yale Center for British Art, Yale University - New Haven, Connecticut, USA). Probably from Wikimedia; fixed spots with Pshop 1247X1623. There are many caps and veils, square necklines, and laced bodices with revers. But full-blown panniers are not to be seen.

1730 Marquise de Gueydan as Flora by Nicolas de Largillière (Musée Granee - Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France). From cutlermiles.com/portrait-of-marquise-de-gueydan-as-flora-nicolas-de-largilliere/ 1908X2484. She wears a stout Swiss belt and cleft coiffure that harken back to the late Louis XIV era.

ca. 1730 Empress Elisabeth Christine by Johann Gottfried Auerbach (auctioned, probably by Lempertz). From Wikimedia trimmed 1715X2352. She wears a round skirt and a scoop neckline.

ca. 1730 Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg, Queen of Sardinia by Maria Giovanna Clementi (location ?). From tumblr.com/blog/view/jeannepompadour; enlarged by half 1053X1385. Her dress has a deep V neckline filled in by a modesty piece.

ca. 1730 Rhoda Apreece, Mrs Francis Blake Delaval attributed to Enoch Seeman the Younger (Seaton Delaval - Seaton Sluice, Northumberland, UK). From artuk.org; enlarged by half 994X1200. The ruff makes this a Van Dyck revival dress. The laced vest and jaunty hat lend a casual air to the portrait.

ca. 1730 Robe volante (Musée de la Mode - Paris, France). From fripperiesandfobs.tumblr.com-post-139802377452-robe-volante-ca-1730-from-the-palais-galliera 1140X1620. Dresses before the 1750s often had cuffs that could be substantial like these.

1731 Die Liebeserklärung by Jean François de Troy (Sanssouci, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin - Brandenburg, Germany). From artsandculture.google.com/asset/die-liebeserklärung-jean-françois-de-troy/XAFpCyLiWrxHZw?h 3074X24.12. Known in the Anglophone world as “The Declaration of Love. The large patterns mark this as early century. The robe à la française is firmly established in the form it would take until the late Louis XVI period.

1731 Infanta Maria Teresa Antonia de Borbón by Jean Ranc (Museo del Prado - Madrid, Spain). From their Web site; removed spots and streaks with Photoshop 2621X3051. Spain was ruled by Borbóns after the last Habsburg was cleared out in the early 1700s.

1731 Julia Calverley, Lady Trevelyan, by Enoch Seeman the Younger (Wallington Hall - Wallington, Northumberland, UK). From nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/584399; erased navigation marks in corners & fixed spots w Pshop 1616X1992. Clasps replace lacing to close this bodice.

1731 Lady by John Vanderbank (location ?). From the Philip Mould Historical Portraits Image Library 920X1214. The dress is Van Dyck revival similar to the one worn by Rhoda Apreece.

[muffinsandpages]

Making a Robe à la française

Because I want to :)

Part I

We all have those dream projects we keep coming back to every now and then. Mine usually change every few months and so get discarded, but reconstructing an historical gown is something that has been living in the back of my mind for years, maybe even before I started sewing.

Ideally, I'd start with something more reasonable, like the Regency period. But I can't help obsessing over 18th century gowns, especially over decorated Robes à la française. I just keep getting back to those.

My mental health is... terrible, to say the least, so I already know that this project is going to take ages for me to complete it. If I manage to complete it at all. But I found that external validation helps, which is why I decided to blog about it.

And so... here goes nothing!

The inspiration

One of the reasons why it took me quite a while to get started was that I didn't really know what I wanted my final result to look like. I have never wanted to make a specific historical reproduction, but you gotta start somewhere.

A couple of years ago (like, more than four) I found these old curtains in my gradma's old house. I I thought they would be perfect a robe, but I still didn't know where to start.

Luckily, mindlessly scrolling intagram isn't always useless (well, it is except for this one instance, but I digress), because I came across this dress on @/katestrasdin's page

After some digging (aka a google image reverse search) I found out the dress is owned by LACMA. Despite being the second image that comes up when you google "Robe a la Polonaise" (via Wikipedia) it's described by the museum as a Woman's Dress and Petticoat (Robe à la Française)" from Spain, circa 1775.

My goal is to make something similar to this, as far as decorations go. The structure should be more "à la Française", so without the draped back à la Polonaise and with a floor lenght skirt. But we'll see.

I'll try to use a patten from Norah Waugh's "The Cut of Women's Clothes" from a 1740-50 Sack Dress.

Since I had no idea how such a pattern worked I started by tracing it on a piece of paper and draping it on a small mannequin, just to have a rough idea of what I was getting myself into. The process gave me flashbacks to the Alexander McQueen paper doll I built in lockdown (if you have a few minutes to a few hours to spare, please check it out here). Nevertheless, I now feel a bit more confident about the whole thing. It can be done

The undergarments (and my plan of action)

This kind of dress needs to be built on the undergarments/understructures. That means they they need to be made before the actual dress. At the same time, making undergarments that are (a) never going to be seen by anyone and (b) pretty difficult to make isn't the most exciting thing in the world.

Weirdly enough, I already made a pair of stays in 2021. They're far from perfect, quite ugly and very much not historically accurate. But the shape is there and they'll do the job, at least for now.

The other most important part are the pocket hoops. It's what I should work on next, but I think I'll actually make a mockup of the dress first, as i want to see how much volume I'll need. Then I'll make the pocket hoops.

Then I'll probably make a mockup of the petticoat to use as an under-petticoat. At this point I should know whether I have enough fabric to make the main petticoat of the same fabric of the dress or not. Then the main petticoat itself and then, hopefully, the dress.

Somewhere in between all of this I should make a shift as well, but it's not vital for the process, so I suspect I'll end up procrastinating it as much as possible

Easy peasy, right?

Right, wish me luck :)

Other stuff

It's not going to be historically accurate. I am starting from historical sources, and I'll try to follow them as much as possible, but in the end I just want to have fun and make a nice dress without too much stress. I will keep the hand stitching to the bare minimum and I'm pretty certain that my fabric is synthetic :)

I'm going to keep it as cheap as possible. Reuse, recycle and r...ice? Idk, you get the idea. I am not invested enough to put hundreds of euros in a project that I'll wear maybe once. And I think that sewing and crafts should be more accessible anyways

Resources

The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600-1930 by Norah Waugh

Woman's Dress and Petticoat (Robe à la française) (LACMA)