Katrina's Black and White Gown

Reference Images

Promo pics:

Exhibit pics:

This costume was on display at New York Women in Film and Televisions' Fourth Annual Designing Hollywood Party at Sotheby's June 16, 2003 in New York City.

Screenshots:

Most of these are velle's screencaps.

Costume Analysis

This gown has an underskirt (or petticoat), a stomacher, and an overgown that has the skirt pulled up underneath it in the polonaise style. It is a form of the robe a la anglaise, with what is sometimes known as a zone front. It looks like the back of the gown is en fourreau, which is when the bodice and skirt cut as one at the center back and stitched down in pleats. As an example of this, you can see Katherine's lovely 18c round gown here. She has a nice photo of the back of her bodice.

This style of gown really needs the right undergarments to give it the proper look. Wearing 18th century stays is probably the best way to go, though some people have just fully boned their bodices. The gown is also likely worn with a bum roll.

The movie is dated 1799, but the gown styles are behind the times - they are very mid 1780s. Here's an example: 1785 gown, except for the direction of the stripes on the sleeves. You can see examples of women's clothing from the 1700s on this site. This gown, or the fragments of it, (link fixed!) also resemble this gown - except for the stomacher. But much of the bodice is similar and it has the stripes going longways down the arm!

I believe the gown has a front closure (we've seen the back and there is no closure there) - I think the stomacher is totally separate, and the front side pieces hook onto it. From the pic at left, it is evident that there is a drawstring at the neckline. You can also clearly see that the leaf trim is embroidered on white netting.

So, check this out - I was trolling around and found a ton of really good promo pics from The Affair of the Necklace. (I want to get a page up on the costumes) - and look what I found! This costume has the exact same embroidered net trim at the neckline as does the black & white striped gown from Sleepy Hollow!! I wonder where to get that trim - I would love to get my hands on some!

The trim on the gown appears to be strips of the gown's fabric. After making the gown, here is my theory. The white drawstring casing and the black ruffle are a two stripe width of gown fabric with a gathering stitch run down the center. The white stripe is folded over the neckline of the gown and sewn down, and a string fed through. I think white frayed organza was used as a layer of trim as well. For the rest of the gown's trim, I think it was done the same way, except the white stripe wasn't folded over, just left free.

The sleeve ruffles are many, and here's the order I figured out: embroidered trim, frayed organza, then 3 stripes (white, black, white) with gathering stitches between each stripe. Then another 3 stripes (black, white, black) also gathered. Then 2 stripes (black, white) with gathering stitches down the middle. Then more frayed organza.

The ruffles on the skirt are two rows of either box or knife pleats. I can't tell exactly which. The pleats are are done so that they line up with the stripes on the skirt. The ruffles only wrap around the front of the skirt. In the back is a longer flounce that looks just gathered, not pleated.

The sleeves are 2 part sleeves, the stripes at the back seam line up perfectly, making Vs of white and black. The stripes in the front line up less well, than in the back. The stripes at the waist of the bodice line up with the stripes on the skirt.

Here is a really nice clear view of her necklace - looks like silver, marcasite, and pearl. It may not be what she was wearing in the movie though - it looks like she's got a charm on a black ribbon in the screenshots.

obiwankatie has really sharp eyes and picked up on something I never noticed - the Sleepy Hollow black & white gown's fabric has tiny goldish or olive stripes next to some (not all) of the black stripes.

As of 2020, and thanks to JP Thompson's exhibit photos, we now know that the stripes... are drawn on with marker. There is indeed a thin olive stripe. The exhibit sign said, "Off white silk taffeta with vertical black stripes and ruched trim. The black stripes were hand drawn with a magic marker and highlighted by a thin green marker stripe on each side."

Here are JP Thompson's exhibit photos, one which nicely shows the en forreau back, and the other showing the exhibit sign that tells us about the fabric and stripes.

The below links may be massively out of date:

Also, I found a nice striped silk taffeta that I think would work nicely for this costume. The stripes are 1", which is larger than I think the real stripes are, but they are more to scale for me. Please note that they carry charcoal/ivory, and charcoal/white. I used the charcoal/ivory for my costume. Here's my Making Of, and pics of my costume.

fabric.com stuff has fabric that has 3/4" stripes, but it's fairly heavy fabric. Sometimes Walmart stocks black and white striped cotton.

I finished my costume - you can read more about it here.

Mellymellow designed fabric for this and it is on Spoonflower. I would buy a sample to make sure the stripes are the width you would want. It looks good though! http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1248249

See also SewStine's blog on her version of this gown: https://sewstine.com/2019/10/23/the-sleepy-met-dress-aka-sleepy-hollow-dress-meets-met-anglaise-dress/

She made her bodice pattern available for download here: https://sewstine.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/patternpieces.pdf

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