Project: Polonaise - Part 1, Reserch

So here's the beginnings of the details I promised about how I made my Polonaise Costume. As you can imagine I did a TON of research for this project but here's an overview of the important stuff from a cannibalised Statement of Intent and a Historical Fashion Overview from my degree folder.

  A Polonaise was a style of dress popular in the Eighteenth century as an informal style that grew from the habit many women had of tucking their expensive overskirts into their pocket slashes during walks to stop the fabric from trailing in the mud as you can see in the picture below which is from the Kyoto Costume Institute.

Over time loops and tabs began to be attached to the skirt in order to fasten it up into three separate parts. The style became known as 'a la Polonaise' due to the First Partition of Poland between Austria, Russia and Prussia in 1772. Demode couture has a great post here on a lot of the differences in style that differentiate the Polonaise from other fashions.

This fashion became quite popular in France for informal wear due to the aristocracy's fascination with their idealised view of the peasant lifestyle which contributed to the anger the working classes felt towards them that would eventually end with the French Revolution of 1789.

I remember there was a lot of umming and ahing over which particular dress I wanted to make. The dress on the left was very frilly and I reeaally liked the hat but finding striped silk would be very difficult and expensive and besides the one on the right had pockets and a hood!