Taixtile emerged as a project in which we explore lace, its great diversity, its historical origins and technical elaboration. While this is the guiding principle of Taixtile, we also want to look at lace in the context of historical clothing.
So our next big goal for both of us is to sew a historical wardrobe. For this, we have chosen the years 1890 – 1900, the time of Edwardian fashion, which is also called La Belle Epoque.
This post is not about lace, but about an important element of historical clothing: The hip pad.
Typical for the chosen era are the narrow waist and the wide hips. Although corsets were a constant part of female clothing, this typical silhouette was created not so much by tightly constricting the body, but rather by optical illusions and the creation of desired proportions. These pads made the hips look wider and the waist appear narrower.
Since there was no pattern for sewing this undergarment, it had to be created first.
For this purpose, we searched for extant examples and used them as a template. In addition, a patented hip pad from 1912 served as inspiration, which has a very interesting shape.
The patent can be found under this link.
Other examples of hip pads can also be found in museum collections.
One is a hip pad labeled as “The Scott”, which is archived at the FIDM Museum in Los Angeles.
The pattern was created based on the own body measurements and made up by eye. It consists of two separate pattern pieces: a small back petal-shaped pattern piece and a second larger piece that is flared on both sides.
The pad was filled with fabric scraps that were leftover from sewing projects in previous years. This is a great way to recycle existing materials!
Two rows of cording were added to the hem edges, creating a nice detail and flattening the cushion at the edges.
The top edge was sewn shut and finished with bias tape.
In this video, we have summarized the entire sewing process. Feel free to take a look!