Cypress Robe a la Francaise

A few months ago I first saw the whimsical cypress embroidered robe a la Francaise from the 2018 Cora Ginsburg catalog and fell in love with it. I immediately knew that I wanted to try and recreate it. I emailed the Cora Ginsburg Gallery and asked if they would be able to send me more images and, much to my surprise and delight, they responded with a few high quality images that were not included in the original catalog pdf!

I have all the images they sent on my Google Drive for anyone who wants to see the detailed images! 

Click read more for additional information about my exciting reproduction project!

I thought about how I would go about recreating this amazing gown. I knew I would want the fabric to actually be embroidered rather than just painted or printed and I also knew that if I were to try to embroider 10+ yards of fabric myself, I would never get it done. I had happened across a design studio in India, Best of Kashmir, some time back. They have a variety of crewel embroidered fabrics, but will also do custom designs. I knew what I had to do. I contacted them and ordered a sample yard of fabric with the cypress design. It took a while for them to create, but I just received a photograph of the fabric and it looks amazing!

I am still waiting until I have the fabric in hand to pass final judgement. I need to see the scale of the trees and the drape of the fabric, but I am very optimistic! If the fabric is as wonderful in person as it seems in these pictures, I plan on ordering the full yardage I will need for making a robe a la Francaise. Lead time on twelve yards of fabric is at least ten weeks, so hopefully I can finish my stays and other underpinnings while the fabric is being made. I have two robe a l'anglaise projects I'm hoping to make too, and those will probably be a good thing to start with before cutting into custom fabric like this!

It's interesting to see how my project ideas have changed and developed since I first got interested in 18th century fashion. Originally I thought I'd just make 18th century versions of Belle's dresses (which I still want to do!) and then I thought I'd do Felicity too (which I also still plan on doing), but now I don't want to limit myself to just 18th century versions of characters. Once I have this dress made, I'm considering making some different petticoats and stomachers to go with it (maybe solid green) and other accessories to go with it and give me some different looks with the same gown.

I'm very excited and I hope that I can have this done by the end of 2019. I've already been considering where I could do a photoshoot once I have the dress complete.