A Yoked Dress

It was time to make a new dress, something I seldom do.  My reenacting wardrobe is more driven by necessity than stylish desire. 

My mother had passed away in March and I decided to wear second-stage mourning in her honor.  Full mourning, involving all black clothing and a black bonnet with a long black mourning veil would take more time than I had to pull together, having only a month between my mother's death and a national event at Shiloh.    We had obligations to attend the event, so remaining home wasn't an option.     Since reenacting involves a healthy dose of make-believe, there is no way for others, be they reenactors or spectators, to know one is not simply showing a mourning impression (pretending to be in mourning), and women in full mourning are often met with insensitive or callous comments.  For those reasons I decided to wear a lighter stage of mourning, one that involves black and white, gray, and lavender.  

I dug into my stash of fabric for this micro check in black and white cotton. The white is actually more of a cream, but I decided to go with what I already had.   Mourning clothing does not rely on much ornamentation, so I knew I wanted to make something a little more interesting than my normal fitted bodice pattern.  

Looking at original cdvs of women, I decided to use a yoked bodice.  Many reenactors tend to delegate the yoked bodice to youthful styles, but looking closely at a number of images shows the yoke to also be an adult style.   A yoked bodice divides the bodice material horizontally, usually above the bust.  The area above the division is treated normally, but the section below the divide is pleated.  I did not have a commercial pattern for this project - I used my fitted bodice pattern and worked out the rest.

The bottom part of the bodice is either gathered or pleated, but I noticed more pleating.  The pleats take the place of the normal gathers or darts to control fullness at the waist and bust.  (To the best of my knowledge, all these images are from Ebay.  If you are the owner and would like an image removed, please contact me and I will be glad to comply)


Contained neat pleats, top embellishment
Soft gathers with a self-ruffle at the join



What look to be tiny pleats, ruffle at top

  Larger soft, loose pleats

                                                   More constrained pleats, no finish at seam.



As we can see, there are several options available - soft gathers or pleats, a smooth seam joining or a self ruffle, and a plain finish or one with an additional embellishment at the seam joining the top and bottom of the bodice.

I chose the bottom image as my inspiration partly because I was using a check for the fabric.  I tend to like more tailored options, so the unembellished seam and the clean pleats appealed to me.



This is my finished dress.  The skirt is pulled up with skirt lifters since the ground was very uneven (we were camped in a bean field) 



I liked the way the pleated yoke turned out.  Please pardon the oddly shaped collar - I was in a hurry to finish the dress before we left.  I have since replace it with a better collar.



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