Marisa
“ 'La Belle Espangole' ('La belle Espagnole, - ou - la doublure de Madame Tallien') -a caricature of Madame Terezia Talian by caricaturist James Gilray in 1796 was my inspiration for this look. This was the first time that I came across an actual fashion plate from that era that featured a model of color. So of course I wanted to recreate this look for my shoot. The gown itself was very simple to make. It's basically a rectangle (one piece in the front, and one piece for the back), with a channel sewn along the top of the back to gather it, and then the trim went from the gathering in the back, over the shoulders, and to attached to the front. Very similar to a bog dress that is commonly worn at an event I go to called The Pennsic War in the SCA.
The gown itself is made out of a brown cotton Swiss-dot fabric that I scored on Etsy. I made a simple yellow satin petticoat to wear under it. The waistband, arm bands, wristband, and the trim along the neckline and the straps were made out of various gold trims, with some layered on a solid piece of gold trim. The necklace was a bib/collared neck piece that I got off of Etsy, but I do want to try to recreate the neck piece that she is wearing in the drawing. The shawl was two pashmina shawls sewn together. I found the PERFECT red shoes for this on Amazon (actually, if you search up women's mules on Amazon, there are A LOT that are passable for historic footwear for quite a few fashion eras). I did not have gold hoops because I forgot to pack them so I wore my pearl drop earrings from Dames a la Mode.”