Where do ideas come from?

So where do I get my gown ideas from?  I don't consider myself to be a particularly creative person, and more than anything I enjoy reproducing pieces that were or may have been in existence.  The first place that I usually look are old fashion plates from magazines of the era.  There were not pre-made clothes.  If you were upper class and needed a new gown, you looked through fashion plates and found one you liked.  Then you went to a tailor or dress maker and had them create the gown for you.  A lot of these old fashion plates are published, and honestly I own a TON of these books.  I usually browse through until something really catches my eye- either for color, or style, or just fun.

Here are 2 examples of fashion plates.
The left is from an 1884 plate for "Ball Toilettes by Mme Coussinet, rue Richer" listed in "La Mode Ilustree", a very popular French fashion magazine of the time.
The right image is a gown that I am planning to sew for the Victorian Cruise next spring.  It came from a January 1877 issue of Godey's, a popular American fashion magazine.  Occasionally, you can find images in color- they would have been hand colored on rare occasion, but most are black and white like the image on the left.  They were usually accompanied by a description of colors, fabrics and trims.

I do, on a rare occasion, look at extant examples of gowns and then work off of those.  Honestly, that isn't as much fun for me.  I really enjoy taking a flat, drawn image of a gown and making it live in 3D.
So far, my most successful fashion-plate-to-gown has been my Sapphire and Snow Antebellum gown that I love so much!  I found the image using a google search and fell in love with it instantly!  I HAD to have that gown!  Here is the fashion plate and the gown I created from it (I also made my husband's Civil War Officer's Uniform, but that is a discussion for another day).

I don't know why, it just jumped at me.  It was one of the more challenging projects I have undertaken- from conception, to altering all the patterns to create what I want, to acquisition of the fabrics it was rough.  But, I have now worn it to balls about 5 times and I get huge compliments and I truly enjoy wearing it.  It was worth the hard work!

My husband and I will be going on a Victorian Cruise to the Caribbean next winter, and I hemmed and hawed about what to do about packing.  I like to pack light.  Bustles, hoops and petticoats are NOT light.  There are a total of 3 balls on this cruise- the Captain's Dinner Ball, a Sapphire Ball (everyone wears something blue), and the last night's ball is a Old West style event.  I can't fit hoops in a suitcase, and my bustle folds flat but is still huge.  So, this necessitated some new gowns in a style I have not sewn before: Natural Form.  (I will do a later post on the 'eras' of Victorian clothing because there were some really interesting HUGE swings and counter-reactions that are interesting to discuss).

So, I searched through my fashion plates in the sections that I rarely pay attention to: 1878-1883 in America, slightly earlier in Europe.  No bustles.  Longer bodices.  Very different from the fluffy, bustled confections I usually like to sew.  I chose 2 gowns to create- the lovely blue and white gown at the top right for the Sapphire Ball, and this gown.
See, very different from the antebellum (think Scarlett O'hara) era, and very different from bustled gowns.  Oh, and not in that color- I don't really do pink as a rule.  Should be an adventure!!!