- So, if you were to ask me, who is your favorite woman in history, I would say without hesitation,
Madame de Pompadour. So you may know her from
the episode of "Doctor Who, "The Girl in the Fireplace"
episode with David Tennant, personally, my favorite Doctor. - Madame de Pompadour,
you are younger every day. - She was great in that episode. Just the fact, just a really fun aside, the dress that Sophia Myles wears is actually the same dress
that is in the movie, "The Madness of King George." - You think I fear you, but
I do not fear you even now. - So back to the real Madame de Pompadour. She was this amazing Renaissance woman who was like good at everything. So she was, she's an
actress, she's an artist, she was talented, she was witty, she designed her own dresses, and she was apparently really funny, and apparently like the
world's nicest human being. So she becomes the King's mistress in 1745 when she first meets him
and she actually managed to keep this really coveted
position until 1764, 19 years of keeping the King's attention. Now, even though she's this amazing symbol of beauty and sex, she really wasn't sexually active with King Louis for a very long time. She apparently had some sort of condition that made sex really painful for her. So she, the physical portion
of their relationship died down around five years after. But he loved her so much. He loved her because she was
so smart and funny and happy, and that they were just
like really good friends, and he would just go to her
chamber and she would amuse him with stories and plays and different ideas on how to like refurbish
and refurnish homes. So she was a patron of the arts. She designed and commissioned
beautiful architecture, paintings and porcelain. She was, she's really often compared to the Minister of the Arts
by modern historians today, and I think that's a
really good way to put it. The best part of all this is she wasn't even born to this world, she was middle class. She died at Duchess, but
she was actually born to two Parisian commoners
as Jean Antoinette Poisson, I'm gonna put that in here because I don't, again,
I'm butchering that. All my French viewers are
probably really mad at me and you really should be, please feel free to comment below about why I'm pronouncing totally wrong. So, you know, a commoner
who rose to be the champion of the arts and earned
a title and the heart and ear of a King, You know, you can see why she's my hero. Like, I mean, man, how awesome is that? So actually, if you ever look
at my downstairs sewing room, you'll notice that
there's a mural on there. Right now, it's the swing, and that was like this close
to not having been there. The other one I was
going to put on my wall was this painting of Madame
de Pompadour by Boucher. And the reason the swing won out is because I love that the
swing is just a little naughty, and by naughty, I mean like a lot naughty. And because of that
little like insinuation, I just, ah, I love it so much, it lost a Fragonard, but you know. I've been meaning to make
it for years and years. The problem with it is that I just haven't been brave enough. I just always felt like I
wasn't good enough to make it and it's one of those paintings that's so famous that if I got it wrong, I felt like people would
just make fun of me forever. And then American Duchess,
a few months back, made this video about just this dress and, you know, she analyzed
the crap out of it. It was amazing. So if you have a chance
to watch that video, she just goes into it and
she describes everything. And like, I didn't know
the bows in the front were called the shells, and
again, butchering that, sorry, but they're called the shells
and there's seven of them, she talked about the different ruffles, ah, it's amazing. So for that reason, I was
like, you know what, Christine, just suck it up, make it,
and if you get it wrong, everyone on the internet is gonna make fun of you forever and ever, and that's okay because you tried. And that is the name of the game, it's not I succeeded, it's I tried. So at least that's for me. And you know, if you've
seen my sleepy hollow dress, you know, I'm willing to
make a dress a lot of times to get it right. So if I don't like this one, there's a really good
chance that in three years, you'll see me try again, and that's okay. So having said that, I
decided to just go for it. I had been trying to
figure out the best way to make a robe a la francaise
like for years and years, I finally decided that my, there is no good one pattern
that does everything. American Duchess has a
robe a la francaise pattern with simplicity and I think that's the best
one out there commercially, the back is a little puny for me, it uses, it doesn't have that wide of a full dress circumference, I think that all the way around for a really full looking
robe a la francaise needs to be about 164
inches to 180 inches. That one's only about 110, at
least for the size that I am. So it seemed a little puny to me, it's not quite as full
and as lush as I like it. So for the back I actually use the, I actually used a JP Ryan pattern. The JP Ryan pattern has a great back. It uses these two pleats on the far right that are underneath the
rest of the Watteau pleats, 'cause those that's what the
pleats on the back are called. So there's two pleats
under the rest of them, as opposed to just one pleat. And they're fairly big pleats, as you can see from the pattern. So you do those pleats on the right, and then you do the other
pleats on towards the center, and then you kind of smush it all together and then you make the back pleats. And they're my favorite part. Then you, using tiny,
tiny little stitches, you stitch down about the top anywhere from three to eight
inches from the top of it. And that kind of makes that
long flowing cape in the back that makes the dress so distinct. Then you still sew down the back, along the middle and along
the along the outer edge so that this part along the sides, is in still nice and taut while you have those
flowing pleats in the back, which is go after you. Like when you are walking
in a robe a la francaise, you just feel like royalty. I think of all the gowns on the planet, they are my favorite gowns to wear because I just feel so like majestic. Then for the front of the dress, I actually don't use did JP Ryan because hers makes a very
straight single piece front, which actually is not that flattering to my body in particular, I don't think, my red dress is made by that, but, but instead of the front
going down in like a triangle, it goes down in two straight lines, which I don't really like that much. So from there on, I use
the American Duchess method of making the sides and the front. To do this, if you look at the book, they have a really great section on how why to cut the front panels and to cut a wedge in it. First, add more fullness
to the bottom of the skirt while taking away fullness
from the top of the skirt. And after you do that, I serge the edges of this, sew it together and then I, again, serged all the edges. I use lace Baby Lock
Victory serger for this, it's really fast and convenient. So after serging all of that, I sewed it together, and
then I sewed it to the sides of the back of the Watteau pleated section that I had just shown you. And then I pleated it about
four pleats on each side, all the pleats pointing
to the center of the side, which also allowed me to put
a little pocket slit there so that I could have pockets so that I could keep camera
water and booze in my pockets for the next time I go to
Versailles in this beautiful gown. After the sides of the skirt were pleated and then machine sewn on, I use a Soprano, it's a Baby Lock Soprano, if anyone's curious
about the machine I use, it's just a very nice functional machine that also does very clean button holes. Then I put on the top panel, and to do so, I just use tiny little
pinprick stitches again. After that, I use the 18th century method of putting in sleeves as detailed in the American Duchess book to put in the sleeves. If you don't have the
American Duchess book and want to sew 18th century,
I highly recommend them. They have some really,
really cool tricks in there that makes sewing 18th
century really easy. So the sleeves are in then and after that, I then
just cleaned up the edges by hemming everything that I could. Madame de Pompadour was
such a Renaissance woman, because she was clearly
a very curious person. She actually spent time
learning new things. For instance, even though she could just commission something, she took the time and lessons to learn actual engraved
printmaking with Boucher and these prints survived to this day, they're so good that people argue whether or not it was
actually done by her, even though it clearly states
that these were her prints. Now, while we don't have Boucher to teach us gem cutting and engraving, I would like to take this moment to talk about today's sponsor, Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning program where you can watch thousands of lectures from incredible professionals and artists. In order to discover how
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Skillshare premium membership. Now back to trimming this gown. The dress portion was done, but that's like 20% of making this, the rest is trimming
it which takes forever and ever and ever and ever. So, yeah, I would say
that sewing the dress up between the Watteau pleats to hand sewing, making the lining, pleating everything, hemming the skirt by hand,
because that's what, you know, that's what you do. And then you, that takes like 40 hours, I think trimming it take
about another 100 hours. So to trim it, I use a
method called pinking. Now pinking is where you
get a very sharp metal tool. I use a pinking iron. By the way, if you know someone who makes pinking irons and sells them, please, please link me below, I am looking for more pinking irons. I know like 50 people who are
looking for pinking irons. So you get a pinking iron,
and then you hammer it, and you hammer it and you hammer it. And you, I hammer it on top of magazines because I find that the
paper takes it really well, and then you do that across. So you do, and so you hammer it, the pinking cut, actually cuts the fabric and it cuts it in such a way that it really doesn't fray, like I'm showing you right here, me like fraying it, trying to fray, but it takes quite a bit to fray it. Again, this depends on the silk. I am using this silk taffeta
from Elegant Fabrics on Etsy. They are a distributor for scalamandre. So this is a thicker, more expensive and very lush silk taffeta that's really strong and densely woven. This does not fray that much. And if you look at historical silks, that's how they were done as well. They were very, very tightly woven, so if you pinked it, it just didn't fray, like 200 years later,
there's, they're pinked. They're not actually sewn like that, and they're still not fraying, which really tells you a lot. If you use, say a cheaper silk, try it out with a pinking iron first, before you buy too much,
because a lot of them will fray. So they will not be good for pinking. If you can't afford a
really densely woven silk, 'cause they are more expensive, my suggestion is use a
little bit of Fray Check to clean the edges so that
even after you pink it, it doesn't fray. If you, however, Fray Check does, tend to like change
the color a little bit, I find that, you know,
people don't usually notice and if do there they're
being jerks, ignore them. But again, if they, if you,
if it really bothers you, I heard really good
things about Gum Arabic. And I have not used it myself personally, but I hear it doesn't change the color, maybe that works, I don't know. But that is always an option as well. I pinked it, then I hand ruffled it. The way that I ruffle
it is I fold it in half and the middle on the wrong side, I use a whip stitch and I gather it. And I kinda did that, then
afterwards I open it up, ironed it flat, and then I sewed it down. And I did the green first, I
did the same with the lace. I actually used a serger to make my lace that was too wide to narrow
it down in certain points, like on the bodice, I wanted
to use a thinner lace. And if you're not really sure, like, look at the painting really closely, you will notice that there is lace. I bet you, the lace she used
was a lot sheerer than mine, but I got this beautiful
antique Nottingham Lace, and I got way too much of
it, I got 50 meters of it. I probably use like 15, but it's okay. I haven enough for the next
two attempts at this dress. For the flowers, I'm not really sure what the original flowers were. Part of me wants to
think that they were real because like she could afford it. How would she do that, apparent certainly paper
flowers or fake flowers weren't really that popular in gowns, but until the 1780s. But like, there are like flowers on there and they might be silk. I ended up using paper flowers. I found mine from Squish-n-Chips on Etsy. Beautiful. And they have, Squish-n-Chips, which a lot of other sellers did not have, had the same flowers in different sizes. So they had 35 millimeter roses, they had 25 millimeter roses, they had 15 millimeter roses. So this meant that I could
use a lot of different sizes, 'cause if you look at the gown, she definitely has smaller roses up here and larger roses on the bottom. And she has multiple colors of roses. So you know how the roses are on there, they're glued. I used E6000 glue, you can yell at me, but I just couldn't think of a good way. I tried sewing them on and
they really weren't sticking. I tried using the wires of the roses. So nothing really worked, and I was, I was like binge-watching Angela Clayton's peacock
dress making again because I can watch that series forever. And Angela Clayton just, you know, was talking about how she used E6000 glue, and I was like, wow,
that looks really good, I should try that. And it really worked, I mean, I love this glue, I've used it for everything like my badge clips and
everything, and it really worked. So I just kind of put a
little dab of glue in the back and put them on. And I used a little
couple of plastic clips to keep them in place while
they were drying overnight and voila, they were done. That's what I did now. Now, for the shells. If you look at them closely,
they're bows and they have, they have little lines on
them, they have stripes. And I looked for ages for a silk ribbon with stripes that even
remotely look like that and I couldn't find anything
and certainly not in silks. So I was even willing to
go with rayon or viscose or anything else if it looked similar. So I finally just gave up and
decided to embroider my own. So to do that, I got some
double face silk Duchesse, pale gold metallic thread, and then I stitched out the stripes. I did this again and again and again, I think, oh my God, I don't even know how many
meters of this I made. I think I made at least
about 12 meters of this. So I embroidered that
on my Baby Lock Valiant, and once that was all embroidered, I pinked it and cut it out. And then after that I made the bows, and so the bows onto the stomacher, and at this point I was cutting it really close to the deadline because I was trying to
finish this by a certain date so that I could meet my photographer and have professional
photos of this taken. So I was rushing, so I apologize, I don't have that much, that footage of me sewing it on, but I did make bows and
I sewed those bows on and, and I was done, like that is the story of how I made the Madame de
Pompadour robe a la francaise. Now, here's a video of me putting it on and explaining all the layers. Normally start in the hair. In this case, I just put
my hair into a simple burn because if you look at
the original painting, her hair is actually quite simple. This isn't the time of big hair, this is 1755, not the 1770s. So now I start on the corset. I'm already wearing a shift
underneath the corset. The shift is from Hand Bell Costumes because I really hate
making shifts, period. The corset is from Redthreaded, this is their 1780s whalebone stays. Again, these are technically stays. I have to say of all the
corsets I've ever bought, these are hands down my favorite. Once it's laced up, I can get started. Now on top of this, I will
wear a set of penny or hoops. These are pocket hoops,
they have slits on the side, so that I can put water
bottles and cell phones and everything in it. These, I also did not make you'll notice that it has to lay netting on top of it, which is not historically accurate. However, the nylon netting, what it actually does is it fluffs it up so that those wires are not
as easily visible from above. Nonetheless, because this taffeta, even though it is quite strong, has a tendency to show the wires, I put on another layer of linen petticoat that will help a lot to
remove the look of the wires from the final look. So I tie that on, from
the first from the back and then from the front. And I just kinda fluff it up. I normally hate making petticoats, so I'm getting myself
to make this petticoat for the sheer sake of removing lines, which are barely visible,
except in very rare photos, took me, believe it or not
three years of procrastination. You too can make underwear. I just hate making underwear guys, I don't know what's wrong with me, but you'll notice that it has, it gives you that wonderful shape and everything has the slits so that I can still reach the hoops, and therefore the pockets. Then I put on the petticoat. This is my silk petticoat and I of course, made it very obvious to show which side is the front
and which side is the back. As normal, I lace up the back first and then the front. Of note, because 18th
century skirts tie like this, I have to say, I can fit my petticoats from anything from a 22 inch waist to probably a 34 inch waist, really comfortably without
losing any of the shape, it's wonderful. And then I just kind of fluff it up, make sure that the, it's all centered. You'll notice that the
pleats are mostly at the side so that there's no pleats in the front to sort of take away, that
I put on the gown itself. If you look under the back, there is lacing so that I can
adjust the back as need be so that it could fit a much larger or smaller waist than my own. Then I actually lace up the front. You'll notice that there's these islets made of metal in the front. And that is not really
historically accurate. However, this was a suggestion
from my JP Ryan pattern and I love it because what it does do is it sort of lines up the front perfectly every single time. Normally you don't have this, you have a wonderful ladies maid that would pin you into your dress. However, since I myself
have no ladies maid, this, makes sure that
everything is lined up even though I might be in a rush and may not have time
to line everything up. So this just as makes
the dress nice and taut against my body. Once that slit laced up, then I can put on my stomacher. Now, my stomacher is quite fluffy, and believe it or not,
it is put on with pins, finding a little sucker. It's just a little dress pin and I believe these are just
sewing pins with metal ends. And if you look at 18th century ones, they were actually
rather large and thicker. I like these because they don't leave as big of a hole in the silk. And before you say anything, yes, I made my dress without robins. I don't really know if her
gowns had robings or not. If you look at another
one of her portraits, that one does not have robins, so I elected to make mine without. And then I was totally set to frolic, and then I realized, wait a second, I'm missing something so
important to this gown, and those are the engageantes
or the white sleeve ruffles that go underneath my sleeves. And I think they add so much, but once that's on, it's on I have to say of like, this is like my favorite thing to wear. I love it so much, I'm
really proud of the fact that it has the exact look that I want. It gives, still gives me the smooth sides, it's really fits very well for me. And I love how generous
those (foreign word) are and how roughly the whole gown is. I could just drown in
the ruffles in this gown and it makes me so unbelievably happy to prance around in it. And of course the first
thing I did after I was done was I went for a photo
shoot with Lindsay Hinderer, Malorie Harris did my hair and makeup. (upbeat music) Anyways, thank you so much
for watching this video. I hope you had a great time,
I know I did making this dress and sharing that journey with all of you. I do post monthly, please check at the end of
every month or the beginning to see my next video. And thanks so much guys.
