Regency Women's Dress: Techniques and Patterns 1800-1830 Paperback – October 1, 2015

Most costuming books feature a wide range of time from mid 1700s to mid 1800s. And that is ok, but this book FOCUSES on the singular period that is commonly refereed to as Empire, Regency, Federal, Directoire, Georgian among others. If you are an experienced stitcher and are familiar with how to blow up and size a pattern using a grid, this is a phenomenal book. Well, it is a phenomenal book even if you aren't.There are sparse construction instructions, if any, but there are intense details about each garment. And all I can say is wow that there are so many patterns! The average regency sewing pattern costs 15 bucks, and you get 20 ... you do the math! The garment examples range from chemises to stays, gowns and redingotes. Its a whole wardrobe. If you already own Waugh and Arnold, this is a very fresh book for the period stitcher who is hungry for more Regency research. Good stuff. Tons of color pics.So buy this book for the patterns and then use the Regency Ladies Fashion Plate book to get trimming, color and detail ideas, and then use the period fabric examples books to get a good idea of period cloth to use. There ya go, regency just got easy. :)

While the author is extremely knowledgeable and the text portion is full of excellent details, the graphic portions leave much to be desired. Since the beautifully done photos show only one specific detail of each historic garment, the overall garment is not shown except in one very simplified drawing of either the front or back view, never both. This makes reconciling the text with the pattern pieces overly challenging when it did not need to be. Additional labelling on the pieces themselves would help immensely: For example, three rectangular pattern pieces on p. 48 have no labels whatsoever. I assume they are for a chemisette, as described in the text, but how they are meant to fit together is a mystery. A chemisette is not shown in the drawing of the gown. The almost full size plates from period fashion journals are lovely, but a distraction since they are not depicting the garment under discussion.I may use this book when next making a Regency garment, but only as an idea book, not for useable blown up pattern pieces. The pieces would require entirely too much adjustment. Much easier to draft new ones or modify a commercial pattern to incorporate some of the details the author describes.

This book contains a short general history of the 19th century Regency Period; along with an introduction. There are photos of the original garments and colored engravings representing the garments. Each garment has an over view of detailed description. This book includes 26 flat patterns of ladies gowns, jackets, spencers, ball dresses and other garments from 1800 thru 1830; including one Quaker Gown Pattern and four under garment patterns; two chemise, one Corset, and one of Short Stays. "Every pattern is drawn to scale from existing Regency garments that have not been previously documented and in some cases, never displayed before." The line drawings are very clear and precise. Further reading references include the authors: Janet Arnold, Cristina Barreto, Nancy Bradfield, Elizabeth Friendship, Katell Le Bourhis, Lucy Johston, and Norah Waugh. Museums, UK and US suppliers are also listed.

Great layout, very polished appearance. Wish there were more photos of the dresses that were patterned-- there is a simple line drawing and a detail shot photo from the dress. Still, I dig it. It's very bare bones-- I love original pattern diagrams, so that doesn't bother me, but if you're expecting Pride and Prejudice with instructions on how to make and trim it, you're better off with a commercial sewing pattern. This is a book for the historical costumer/researcher looking for original material and info. The patterns are very basic with minimal description. My one complaint is that the diagrams should have been cleaned up a bit-- I don't mind that they're by hand, but it looks very hastily done with wavering lines.

They’re all basic Regency era gowns, but all easily made to be embellished and even altered if one so would like. Perfect for lovers of Regency gowns!! I plan to make 2 mock-ups of my absolute favorite from this book in muslin then mess about with them. One I will be using Original Practice and try to stay as close to what it would have looked like then. The other mock-up of the same dress is to get creative with bc it inspired me for a Faerie Tale photo shoot. I’m so excited!!! About the reconstruction a gown made so long ago (history + dressmaking = yay!!!) as well as getting creative for further creativity though watercolour, photography, and yeah maybe make one more to file under Historybounding :D

This book has a history of regencyfashions, then 26 patterns for recency garments from small American museums. Some undergarments and unusual items such as a Quaker dress are included and it's amazing to see so many items in one book from this period. Each garment has a short description with history if known of the item, a small photo generally of a detail, a small sketch of the garment _ front only, and confusingly a near full page colour fashion plate of a similar garment. The grid style Pattern takes the next two pages even if all pieces could have fitted on to one page.I just wish there we're larger photos of the featured garments. I assume these may not be on display and thus a detail was easier to photograph.

The patterns all come from clothing found in America; unfortunately there are no full length photos of the actual garments themselves just one photo each of a detail and a small drawing. The patterns take up two pages when often, they could have fitted on one - more photos could have been used instead. Scaling is metric if you wish to enlarge on a photo copier (Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion are imperial). There are lovely pictures of fashion plates of the time and the inclusion of a Quaker Gown contrasts nicely with the high waist lines.

This would have been much better if there were full length photos of the dresses the patterns were taken from, rather than just a close-up detail of 1 area for each garment. It seems like they are an interesting collection of dresses if only we were allowed to see them!

Good patterns but would have liked to have seen more illustrations. The would preferably be photographs, but drawings would have been better than nothing. No making-up instructions were included.

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