Hi Vince! So I'm working on my first ever period piece project, and I've decided to make an 18th century gentleman's wrapping gown. I'm having trouble finding source images or patterns, and I was wondering if you had any go-to sources for these kinds of things. It seems like there's plenty on formal wear but less so on leisure wear, so I'm not sure where to start. Thanks for your help, and for sharing your amazing projects!
Hello! A wrapping gown sounds like an excellent choice for a first historical project! I haven’t made one yet, but it’s on my list.
The only wrapping gown pattern I’ve come across is this one, which appears to have been scanned from a book, though I don’t know which book. It’s dated 1688-1695, but wrapping gowns change so very little that it’s basically the same cut as later ones.
The piecing shown on this pattern is likely because historical fabric widths were narrower, so with modern fabrics you’ll probably be able to fit it all in one width with either no piecing, or just a tiny bit of piecing on the sleeves if the fabric is on the narrower side and/or your arms are long.
It looks pretty simple. Front, back, and sleeves cut all in one piece, and you’d just need to sew up the side seams. That extra strip is either a facing or an extension of some sort. The dotted lines would seem to indicate an extension, but I haven’t seen anything like that on any of the extant ones, and the stripes in the illustration also indicate that there’s nothing extra sewn on, so I’m leaning towards it being a facing.
Here’s the accompanying illustration.
As you can see in many different photos of extant wrapping gowns laid flat, they have exactly the same shape as the above pattern folded in half.
c. First quarter of the 18th century, The Met.
Mid 18th century, The Met.
Some have narrower sleeves and some have wider sleeves. Turned back cuffs seem to be pretty popular, and this looks especially nice if the robe is fully lined in a contrasting colour.
c. 1690-1720, V&A.
They look so different on a figure compared to lying flat, wow!
A lot of these definitely have a small collar added, but there’s no visible break in the print from the front, so as far as I can tell it’s stuck in the back like this:
I hope this crappy diagram makes sense. That’s meant to be the cut for the long front opening, but with a T shaped cut at the top instead of the scooped out one in the pattern. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on, but I’ll be able to say more precisely what shape it is when I get around to making my own, whenever that happens.
Here’s a nice shot of a somewhat contrasting lining. c. 1715-25, Winterthur.
Ooh and there’s a buttonhole in one of the closeup photos, how interesting! I hope I can find some construction information on these, because I don’t know what order the bits ought to be sewn in, or what stitches were used. I’ll go digging for that later though.
And here’s a nice one with stripes, which show very clearly that the front opening of this was cut straight up the middle. c. Second half of 18th century, MFA Boston.
If you have pinterest, do take a look at my board of banyans, wrappers, etc! It’s got a lot of other leisure wear pins, but I think about a hundred of them are wrapping gowns.
And if anyone is looking for banyan patterns (which are much more fitted, and cut more like coats) there’s one available on LACMA’s website here, and a similar one on page 83 of The Cut of Men’s Clothes, here.
Best of luck on your wrapping gown!
I wanted to add some additional information including a pattern which I used an altered version for mine.
Thank you! Nice to have some new sources out, as neither of those videos existed when I first answered this!
Ooh also, I forgot to update this post but someone else did find the source of that pattern diagram.
