For a "first try" at the 18th century it´s in my opinion pretty good. Dont be by the way too concerned about some edges being stitched on. In 18th century clothing thats basically standard. Piecing is period as it goes. And there is few pieces of clothing, no matter the time, worth and make, that are not pieced, often to quiet ridicoulus degrees. Some points I might be able to help with. So excuse the long comment and hopfully this will be understanable. Really need to start making videos of my stuff. At times I feel a bit sorry for not putting out more than a few posts on reddit from time to time. And detailed video is always better than just writing or even a post with images. On the "not to femenin shape" A lot of 18th century men´s wear would feature what we would nowadays see as a more effeminate shape. A voluminous backside, quiet sloped and narrow shoulders and a tight fitting more pronounced waist. All together, as visible with historical paintings, a man looked quiet curvy in 18th century clothing. There is a bit of a joking saying "If it buttons, it fits", the clothing was tailored very fitting. (but usually not too tight) For waistcoats especially the shoulder area was very well fitted and had as little bulk as possible, our modern broad shouldered and even padded designs would appear quied brutish and unrefined to the 18th century eye. With the assembling of the whole waistcoat, I often see people having problems to describe it. Let me have a try at it: So when working on a waistcoat, assembling the fronts and back was one of the last steps, followed by finishing the arm scyes and neck. Everything else, sewing pockets, interfacing, buttons and buttonholes as well as mostly sewing in the lining was done before that. You basically are left with a mostly finished waistcoat in three pieces. Then, the side and shoulder seams are sewn with a tight and solid back stitch. The seam allowance is pressd open and then the lining is slip stitched together. To finish the waistcoat the scyes and neck are then stitched on the edges after folding in the seam allowances. Although, the slip stitching and edge finishing can be switched around to what one prefers. I actually like to first do the scyes and neck and then slipstitch the lining. This is just one way to do it, but from what I have seen it´s the most common. Only assembling it at the end makes woking with it much simpler, as you only have to handle smaller pieces. Different pieces could also be done by differnt people, splitting the work and getting it done much faster. My Reddit account has a build of a historically constructed waistcoat: www.reddit.com/user/Reep1611/submitted/ And here is the post specifically on the final assembly: www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalCostuming/comments/12d1xq5/assembly_work_on_my_1760s_waistcoat/ You also can find more info in my posts, like a detail in regards to the shoulders basically all these patterns miss, but that is an important element for the right fit. The edge that goes into the shoulder seam is longer on the back than in the front. About 1/4"-1/2" in difference. They are then eased into each other when sewing so that at the start and end of the seam the other edges of front and back match up. By doing that the shoulder is naturally shaped into a slight bulge over the shoulderblade and a dip over the collarbone. This enables the very tight and slim fit we see in 18th century waistcoats without any weird waves or creases. Sparse button holes are also perfectly historical, but you can cheat and make them much nicer by taking the button hole thread, doubling it than twisting it and folding it over so it creates a thicker "gimp" of the same collour to stitch around when making the button holes. It raises the stitches and covers most inconcistencys while also reinforcing it further. Really like doing that. In combination with a "Buttonhole Mould", basically a piece wood with a slim slit in it (one can also use two pieces lying next to each other) that I can press the buttonhole stitching into with an iron makes them look much straighter and even than they actually are. As i like to say "Gimp, mould and waxing make my stitching look more taxing". From what I have seen you also didn´t use interfacing. That is probably next to only doing the stitches what gave you the most trouble with the buttonholes. Especially 1740´s waistcoats had a lot of interfacing made from buckram (stiffened linen canvas, historically with gum tragacanth, but gum arabic also works very well) and horsehair canvas (although, that can also be exchanged for buckram). With 1740´s waistcoats the "flaps" of the front, basically the front from the waist line down, would be interlined with either horsehair canvas (the hair going paralel to the bottom edge) or buckram. That way the "skirt" is a lot more even and pronounced, as was "en vouge" during that decade. On the front you also want to have two strips of interfacing, 2-3 inches wide, running along the edge inside the the front from neck to bottom edge. Those reinforce the button holes, add more material for the buttons to hold on to and help to give the upper part of the waistcoat that is left open a nicer shape and stop it from flopping around. On the button side a "button stand" would also be added behind the interfacing, from just below where the the last button attaches to just above the first. Its a 2 1/4" piece of unstiffened linen that is folded in half at 1" to create a kind of step that reduces bulk so no hard edge appears in the fabric. Going through both layers, the interfacing and the fashion fabric it´s stitched in with a topstitch from the outside. This is the line of stitching you can see on basically all 18th century waistcoats sitting behind the buttons. Really, those are just some point´s, and one could write a whole paper about just 18th century waistcoat construction. As chance has it, someone actually did. If you are interested here is the link: scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1781&context=etd Some cautiuon is advised, this is an older work and has a more limited number of examples to base some assumptions on, that I know are not correct from personal research. And it can be a little confusing at times and needs some points of information to really get at times. Some important points I disagree with are for example the interfaceing, not really going too deep into the materials and stating some things that are at times even disproven by the very images featured in the very paper (for example plates from diderot´s encyclopedia). But overall it´s a wonderful resource and quiet helpfull. Even featuring 10 "draft patterns" with construction notes and a lot of colour images of extant examples. I would also reccomend Neal Hurst´s channel, where he has some tutorials on basic techniques as well as hour long in deph discussions on 18th century men´s wear, going into breeches, waistcoats and so on. www.youtube.com/@nealhurst8949 And a last tip is the "18th century men´s wear" Facebook group, it´s a well of information, images of extant examples you often won´t find anywhere else, and a place where a lot of subject specific knowledge is compiled and people who know a lot can be asked. I hope my very extensive comment is of help to you. There is too few people here going into 18th century men´s wear and I try to help with getting information on that stuff out where I can, because from my personal jurney I know how annoying and convoluted the information can be and how hard it can be to find.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, this is so helpful! It's annoying to find tutorials for this era of men's clothing, hopefully those who need it will find more info than I did. And a better pattern would help too ;)
@@NoMoreSilkTwist Yeah, as I said, I really should start making some tutorials and collect stuff I write and post somewhere. The information is all put there, but it’s fragmented and disjointed over many sites, different media and worse, often pretty hard to find because the really interesting stuff is sequestered in forums, groups or not search engine optimised and getting drowned out by advertisements and generic very unhelpful stuff like „10 18th century clothing ideas“ or „the truth about historical „whatever“ will shock you!“ articles thats often also wrong but posted in a way to land high in the listings. I am often in the double or even triple digits of google results till I find anything worthwhile that I have not seen repeated 20 times or is generic and wrong BS and Ads. Or I just find nothing, then stumble across something featuring exactly what I searched for, but that Google never showed to me. It’s really annoying. In regards to the patterns. I recommend making your own. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, probably not going to work well the first few times, but quickly gets better with repetition. Really, if you work with making muslins first, an understanding on what shapes fit in what way comes subconsciously over time. By now I am not even really using drafting systems anymore outside the most basic block pattern. Everything else i just draft up, doesn’t always work the first time, but thats what fittings are for. The main hurdle is that drafting and pattern making is a „hard entry, delayed results“ thing. Meaning that you don’t see a lot of growth at first, and results only happen after the first few times. But in my experience there usually is a point where it „clicks“ and what previously took a lot of effort, calculation and trial and error suddenly turns into an eyballed „the line should go about there“. I also recommend to take a page from bespoke tailors today and not just do one fit with the muslin, but two or three fits. First one with the muslin to work out the pattern, second one with the actual fabric and things like lining and interfacing basted in place. That is a good idea to do, because the actual fabric is going to act somewhat different to the one used in the muslin, which can change the fit a bit and require correction. That second fit is also great to check is the placement of the pockets and other additional parts is good. Really, I actually don’t bother with predetermining the placement of these and do it „freehand“ during that fitting. Even completely changing up or outright making the pattern for the flaps up at that point as it gives a much better idea on how they should sit and what size and shape will be right. After mostly finishing, but before the final assembly (with the waistcoat as an example, before i sew the three parts together) I tack them together with basting and do a last fit, to iron out any issues that might have propped up during sewing, as all the stitching and interfacing can have an impact of it, or to just do a bit of finagling to really get a good fit. By the way, if you are interested, I got a old translation of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia into english (Which was a find, because that supposedly does not exist and it’s only around in French. But the scan is passed around in costuming and theatre circles, even if you won’t find it anywhere on the net.). This also includes some notes and best of all some drafting instructions to make basic block patterns for breeches, waistcoats and coats, one can base 18th century clothing on. If you have a way for me to send it to you, I can share it. And as a general recommendation for „instructions“. Mostly ignore them. Look at historical extant clothing (the FB group I recommend is great there, but digital museum collections are also great there), think about how what you see there could have been made (with some more exercise and research in 18th century tailoring an understanding for that just kind of develops, certain stuff was just done in certain ways, and that repeats all over the different areas and clothing. If its similar in construction to another area, it’s likely it was done the same or very similar even if in a different area.) and then write up your own construction procedure. Basically going through how you would make the piece in theory. It’s what I do to troubleshoot my stuff. And don’t be afraid to just diverge from what was planned if you have a problem. If you look at actual 18th century work, you can see the traces of tailors doing just that all over. An further point to that is to let go of the thought of „how this was done back then“. Our modern mindset and expectations really makes some troubles for us there. We always think of things being done in a pretty standardised and generally unified way. But thats a modern thing. With some exceptions, parts that had to be made a certain way to last, but even there is always some variation, 18th century clothing construction is a hot mess and can be summed up with „Whatever works, works.“. Really, I am pretty sure thats also why a lot of stuff is very inconsistent and contrarian, instructions and tutorials constantly disagreeing and why if you ask 10 historical costumers how something was done you will get 12 different answers. 18th century clothing construction is only really consistent in it‘s inconsistency. There is always 3-5 different completely historical correct ways to do something, adding up the millions of ways a single piece of clothing could (and most likely has) been made. (case in point, I got photos of the knees from dozens of historical breeches, and not a single one is done the same way with the exception of some very general points depending on material and quality, those still differing in the exact execution) Which, once we get over the modern bias, is actually a god sent because it allows for a lot of leeway when not outright making an exact copy of a specific piece. I have a motto when I cannot find how a certain detail was made: „If I can think of a good way to do it on the top of my head, it was most likely done that way by someone.“ And so far that has proven pretty on point, as I often later on discover a extant example featuring just what I made. So long as one goes about it using historical methods, it’s a pretty good bet.
For a "first try" at the 18th century it´s in my opinion pretty good. Dont be by the way too concerned about some edges being stitched on. In 18th century clothing thats basically standard. Piecing is period as it goes. And there is few pieces of clothing, no matter the time, worth and make, that are not pieced, often to quiet ridicoulus degrees.
Some points I might be able to help with. So excuse the long comment and hopfully this will be understanable. Really need to start making videos of my stuff. At times I feel a bit sorry for not putting out more than a few posts on reddit from time to time. And detailed video is always better than just writing or even a post with images.
On the "not to femenin shape" A lot of 18th century men´s wear would feature what we would nowadays see as a more effeminate shape. A voluminous backside, quiet sloped and narrow shoulders and a tight fitting more pronounced waist. All together, as visible with historical paintings, a man looked quiet curvy in 18th century clothing. There is a bit of a joking saying "If it buttons, it fits", the clothing was tailored very fitting. (but usually not too tight)
For waistcoats especially the shoulder area was very well fitted and had as little bulk as possible, our modern broad shouldered and even padded designs would appear quied brutish and unrefined to the 18th century eye.
With the assembling of the whole waistcoat, I often see people having problems to describe it. Let me have a try at it:
So when working on a waistcoat, assembling the fronts and back was one of the last steps, followed by finishing the arm scyes and neck. Everything else, sewing pockets, interfacing, buttons and buttonholes as well as mostly sewing in the lining was done before that. You basically are left with a mostly finished waistcoat in three pieces. Then, the side and shoulder seams are sewn with a tight and solid back stitch. The seam allowance is pressd open and then the lining is slip stitched together. To finish the waistcoat the scyes and neck are then stitched on the edges after folding in the seam allowances. Although, the slip stitching and edge finishing can be switched around to what one prefers. I actually like to first do the scyes and neck and then slipstitch the lining.
This is just one way to do it, but from what I have seen it´s the most common. Only assembling it at the end makes woking with it much simpler, as you only have to handle smaller pieces. Different pieces could also be done by differnt people, splitting the work and getting it done much faster. My Reddit account has a build of a historically constructed waistcoat: www.reddit.com/user/Reep1611/submitted/
And here is the post specifically on the final assembly: www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalCostuming/comments/12d1xq5/assembly_work_on_my_1760s_waistcoat/
You also can find more info in my posts, like a detail in regards to the shoulders basically all these patterns miss, but that is an important element for the right fit. The edge that goes into the shoulder seam is longer on the back than in the front. About 1/4"-1/2" in difference. They are then eased into each other when sewing so that at the start and end of the seam the other edges of front and back match up. By doing that the shoulder is naturally shaped into a slight bulge over the shoulderblade and a dip over the collarbone. This enables the very tight and slim fit we see in 18th century waistcoats without any weird waves or creases.
Sparse button holes are also perfectly historical, but you can cheat and make them much nicer by taking the button hole thread, doubling it than twisting it and folding it over so it creates a thicker "gimp" of the same collour to stitch around when making the button holes. It raises the stitches and covers most inconcistencys while also reinforcing it further. Really like doing that. In combination with a "Buttonhole Mould", basically a piece wood with a slim slit in it (one can also use two pieces lying next to each other) that I can press the buttonhole stitching into with an iron makes them look much straighter and even than they actually are. As i like to say "Gimp, mould and waxing make my stitching look more taxing".
From what I have seen you also didn´t use interfacing. That is probably next to only doing the stitches what gave you the most trouble with the buttonholes. Especially 1740´s waistcoats had a lot of interfacing made from buckram (stiffened linen canvas, historically with gum tragacanth, but gum arabic also works very well) and horsehair canvas (although, that can also be exchanged for buckram). With 1740´s waistcoats the "flaps" of the front, basically the front from the waist line down, would be interlined with either horsehair canvas (the hair going paralel to the bottom edge) or buckram. That way the "skirt" is a lot more even and pronounced, as was "en vouge" during that decade. On the front you also want to have two strips of interfacing, 2-3 inches wide, running along the edge inside the the front from neck to bottom edge. Those reinforce the button holes, add more material for the buttons to hold on to and help to give the upper part of the waistcoat that is left open a nicer shape and stop it from flopping around.
On the button side a "button stand" would also be added behind the interfacing, from just below where the the last button attaches to just above the first. Its a 2 1/4" piece of unstiffened linen that is folded in half at 1" to create a kind of step that reduces bulk so no hard edge appears in the fabric. Going through both layers, the interfacing and the fashion fabric it´s stitched in with a topstitch from the outside. This is the line of stitching you can see on basically all 18th century waistcoats sitting behind the buttons.
Really, those are just some point´s, and one could write a whole paper about just 18th century waistcoat construction. As chance has it, someone actually did. If you are interested here is the link: scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1781&context=etd
Some cautiuon is advised, this is an older work and has a more limited number of examples to base some assumptions on, that I know are not correct from personal research. And it can be a little confusing at times and needs some points of information to really get at times. Some important points I disagree with are for example the interfaceing, not really going too deep into the materials and stating some things that are at times even disproven by the very images featured in the very paper (for example plates from diderot´s encyclopedia).
But overall it´s a wonderful resource and quiet helpfull. Even featuring 10 "draft patterns" with construction notes and a lot of colour images of extant examples.
I would also reccomend Neal Hurst´s channel, where he has some tutorials on basic techniques as well as hour long in deph discussions on 18th century men´s wear, going into breeches, waistcoats and so on. www.youtube.com/@nealhurst8949
And a last tip is the "18th century men´s wear" Facebook group, it´s a well of information, images of extant examples you often won´t find anywhere else, and a place where a lot of subject specific knowledge is compiled and people who know a lot can be asked.
I hope my very extensive comment is of help to you. There is too few people here going into 18th century men´s wear and I try to help with getting information on that stuff out where I can, because from my personal jurney I know how annoying and convoluted the information can be and how hard it can be to find.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, this is so helpful!
It's annoying to find tutorials for this era of men's clothing, hopefully those who need it will find more info than I did.
And a better pattern would help too ;)
@@NoMoreSilkTwist Yeah, as I said, I really should start making some tutorials and collect stuff I write and post somewhere. The information is all put there, but it’s fragmented and disjointed over many sites, different media and worse, often pretty hard to find because the really interesting stuff is sequestered in forums, groups or not search engine optimised and getting drowned out by advertisements and generic very unhelpful stuff like „10 18th century clothing ideas“ or „the truth about historical „whatever“ will shock you!“ articles thats often also wrong but posted in a way to land high in the listings.
I am often in the double or even triple digits of google results till I find anything worthwhile that I have not seen repeated 20 times or is generic and wrong BS and Ads. Or I just find nothing, then stumble across something featuring exactly what I searched for, but that Google never showed to me. It’s really annoying.
In regards to the patterns. I recommend making your own. It’s a bit overwhelming at first, probably not going to work well the first few times, but quickly gets better with repetition. Really, if you work with making muslins first, an understanding on what shapes fit in what way comes subconsciously over time. By now I am not even really using drafting systems anymore outside the most basic block pattern. Everything else i just draft up, doesn’t always work the first time, but thats what fittings are for.
The main hurdle is that drafting and pattern making is a „hard entry, delayed results“ thing. Meaning that you don’t see a lot of growth at first, and results only happen after the first few times. But in my experience there usually is a point where it „clicks“ and what previously took a lot of effort, calculation and trial and error suddenly turns into an eyballed „the line should go about there“.
I also recommend to take a page from bespoke tailors today and not just do one fit with the muslin, but two or three fits.
First one with the muslin to work out the pattern, second one with the actual fabric and things like lining and interfacing basted in place. That is a good idea to do, because the actual fabric is going to act somewhat different to the one used in the muslin, which can change the fit a bit and require correction. That second fit is also great to check is the placement of the pockets and other additional parts is good. Really, I actually don’t bother with predetermining the placement of these and do it „freehand“ during that fitting. Even completely changing up or outright making the pattern for the flaps up at that point as it gives a much better idea on how they should sit and what size and shape will be right.
After mostly finishing, but before the final assembly (with the waistcoat as an example, before i sew the three parts together) I tack them together with basting and do a last fit, to iron out any issues that might have propped up during sewing, as all the stitching and interfacing can have an impact of it, or to just do a bit of finagling to really get a good fit.
By the way, if you are interested, I got a old translation of Diderot’s Encyclopaedia into english (Which was a find, because that supposedly does not exist and it’s only around in French. But the scan is passed around in costuming and theatre circles, even if you won’t find it anywhere on the net.). This also includes some notes and best of all some drafting instructions to make basic block patterns for breeches, waistcoats and coats, one can base 18th century clothing on. If you have a way for me to send it to you, I can share it.
And as a general recommendation for „instructions“. Mostly ignore them. Look at historical extant clothing (the FB group I recommend is great there, but digital museum collections are also great there), think about how what you see there could have been made (with some more exercise and research in 18th century tailoring an understanding for that just kind of develops, certain stuff was just done in certain ways, and that repeats all over the different areas and clothing. If its similar in construction to another area, it’s likely it was done the same or very similar even if in a different area.) and then write up your own construction procedure. Basically going through how you would make the piece in theory. It’s what I do to troubleshoot my stuff. And don’t be afraid to just diverge from what was planned if you have a problem. If you look at actual 18th century work, you can see the traces of tailors doing just that all over.
An further point to that is to let go of the thought of „how this was done back then“. Our modern mindset and expectations really makes some troubles for us there. We always think of things being done in a pretty standardised and generally unified way. But thats a modern thing. With some exceptions, parts that had to be made a certain way to last, but even there is always some variation, 18th century clothing construction is a hot mess and can be summed up with „Whatever works, works.“.
Really, I am pretty sure thats also why a lot of stuff is very inconsistent and contrarian, instructions and tutorials constantly disagreeing and why if you ask 10 historical costumers how something was done you will get 12 different answers. 18th century clothing construction is only really consistent in it‘s inconsistency. There is always 3-5 different completely historical correct ways to do something, adding up the millions of ways a single piece of clothing could (and most likely has) been made. (case in point, I got photos of the knees from dozens of historical breeches, and not a single one is done the same way with the exception of some very general points depending on material and quality, those still differing in the exact execution) Which, once we get over the modern bias, is actually a god sent because it allows for a lot of leeway when not outright making an exact copy of a specific piece.
I have a motto when I cannot find how a certain detail was made: „If I can think of a good way to do it on the top of my head, it was most likely done that way by someone.“
And so far that has proven pretty on point, as I often later on discover a extant example featuring just what I made. So long as one goes about it using historical methods, it’s a pretty good bet.
Just discovered this channel and I love this project!
Thank you!
You won't have to wait that long for the final video, I'll get it up around the same time next week :)
It looks so good!
Bonjour quel patron avez-vous utilisé svp cordialement ?
Name of the pattern is in the description. It's from reconstructing history
je ne trouve pas auriez-vous le lien svp ? ou alors il ne se vend pas en France Merciiii