Sissi Wedding dress

 2021 was rough for the industrious Lady Blog and my dear followers you deserve an apology. In the spirit of being a poor adult who also has a certain addiction to silk, I spent the last year without active internet service or a working computer. Any posts that were made were done using the computer at the local library. As one can imagine, that made blogging and writing about projects pretty rough. And boy is there a lot to write about. The only thing that got me through was petting the pretty silks and chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate.

 2021 might have been rough for writing but a huge new event happened that my dear readers don't know about yet, I got married. And of course in the spirit of industry and fun, I made my wedding dress. As I sat as a now engaged human, a choice had to be made, the choice of what kind of fun dress to make. And it had to be the perfect dress... the ultimate dress... and then it hit me. What dress in all of 19th century history is most close to perfection? The white star dress worn by her Royal Highness Empress Sisi in her Winterhalter painting. 

Now if you don't know who Empress Sisi is , she was a royal family member of the Austria who's sister was meant to be married to the Emperor. He took one look at Sisi and abandoned her older sister to marry her. She was 16 and court life was pretty brutal, plus her mother in law, the dowager empress, was pretty upset over getting the "wrong sister". Sisi had some kids, had an eating disorder, and did philanthropic work. Her support of the hungarian people cemented the love of the masses and she died beloved by her subjects. The Austrian people still adore her to this day. Her and her son's murder kicked off the events of world war 1.

She was pretty, she was kind, and boy did she rock that white dress. This specific dress was created by Worth Couture for the Empress, and was one of his earlier works. What happened to the dress after the painting remains a mystery, it disappeared over the last 160 years, which happened suspiciously often with Worth's creations. The Vienna Sisi Museum wrote on their website that it might have been donated to the local church but there is no record of it being donated, just a vestment with similar embroidery and a word of mouth story.

So what is a girl with an obsession for 1860's fashion to do? Remake the dress and get married in it of course! Which is easier said than done, the dress is gone so how it was made and fabric are mere speculation. 

image createed and credited to https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1865-winterhalter-empress/

This diagram helped break it down into materials

White Silk base

Overlay of Organza with Silver Stars

tucker with black ribbon

White Silk

The technical term for this color is candlelight white, so not a true white but more of the color of white when reflecting candle light. This came second hand from a lady on facebook, making it easy on the budget. $70 for five yards.

Organza Overly

The debate of what exactly the star dress overlay was made from or how the stars were applied. A sketchy third source mentioned something about the stars being foil, and after staring at  the picture for longer than is probably healthy, I agree that the stars might be pressed foil, a method of applying metal shape to fabric. It was first used in the 1830's, but really didn't gain popularity until the 1880's. (https://www.minted.com/lp/foil-press-printing). It just doesn't quite look like embroidery. Found this lovely gem on etsy for $7 a yard and ordered 8 yards of it.

The tucker will come later

Fitting the bodice was the next step, and with a little tweaking it turned out pretty well fitted.

With a mockup ready and the fabric it was time to move onto the next step, cutting into the precious silk and creating a skirt/overskit and bodice.