Robe de Cour 1756
following the portrait of Madame Adélaide de France (by Jean-Marc Nattier).
With its finest hand embroidery, which ressembles a nocturnal sky, the hand-made Devon lace of the 18th century and the châtain silk, this garment represents an almost unique reproduction of a majestic court dress!
It was a great challenge to reproduce a dress, which was used to be worn at the Royal Court, and thus had been imcomparable in richness and magnificience. We have been working for more than six month for the realisation and studied countless sources, whereas we experienced the most friendly support by Ms Rangström, Livrustkammaren, Stockholm, who is an acknowledged expert on historical clothing.
Thus we succeeded in recreating a royal wardrobe. In terms of superiority of the materials, the finesse of the embroidery, perfection of the shape and the quality of fabrication, a dress like that represents the fashion of 18th century royal circles and is nearly unique nowadays.
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Full view of the robe, revealing the entire beauty of the embroidery, which seems almost like a nocturnal sky.
The dress, which was worn by Adélaide on her portrait, has been reproduced in detail.
The court train is an indispensable element. It was common to wear it over the tabs in the front, but beneath the tabs on the back side. It was fastened in the front.
One favoured to drape it either over the skirt, or to fold it back directly.
A special component, which makes the dress so precious, is the use of original Devon Bobbin Lace of the 18th century.
This special kind of court dress obtains it character by the distinctive sleeves. It is this reason for which we have used antique lace.
Often these court dresses were accompanied with an elegant scarf, which fell decidedly loose in the front.
We also adopted the artistic finish on the bodice. This is an important detail, as the pattern lines (which are highlighted by silver trims) unite at this point.
The bodice is manufactured like a fully-boned corset. This form of corset is extraordinarily difficult, but commonplace with court dresses