Clever Quilting and Other Ingenious 18th Century Clothing Hacks

The upper classes may have been able to afford the nicest things in the finest materials, but even they at times found ways to be frugal with their attire. Take for example these quilted petticoats. They each exhibit signs of smart textile engineering through the additional fabric added as stripes. Petticoats like this, with their quilted material, would have been most popular in colder regions such as Sweden, England, and even the American colonies. The red one comes to us courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and that orange band at the top no only lengthens the petticoat, but more to the point it provides a less bulky fabric that can be gathered to fit a small space like a corseted waist. If you try to sew a channel in quilted fabric you end up with something really thick that does not gather or pleated down smoothly. The other petticoat, with its wide white stripes on the yellow, is a way of extending a petticoat that otherwise would be too short so that the extending fabric becomes a feature rather than an eyesore. The quilting unifies the two areas so that they are taken as whole piece rather than cutting the figure.

It's also a nice contrast from the first image because it clearly shows the thick, difficult pleating that happens when this kind of fabric is gathered to a waistband. It's pretty bulky, comparatively-speaking. This one can be found at the Met in New York. I've known many reenactors to make their quilted petticoats out of old bedspreads, should you want to try it for yourself.

A slightly more hidden example of the ingenuity of our ancestors in this regard is in the interior linings of many a glorious sacque-backed gown (a.k.a. the robe a la francaise). One look at the inside of one of these beauties and you'll notice that not only does the lining not necessarily match the outer fabric at all, but that sometimes it is either taken from an earlier gown that is being cannibalized, or even many pieces from perhaps off-cuts of other projects. Piecing is period! For a truly wild and wonderful look at this in action you can head to the Met to see a French jacket of the last quarter of the 18th century (below) which has an abundance of different fabrics all used to make up one lining. I'd love to know if these were all from other garments in its owner's collection, or if they were cheap leftovers from the shop of the tailor or dressmaker who created it for the client. Personally, I think we should bring this idea back, for fashion, for sustainability, and for the good of all of our budgets!