Aww, thank you!
I worked really hard to ensure every detail is period accurate. For example, I spent days scouring Etsy to find a period-appropriate floral printed cotton, and many hours working on the silhouette.
This is a visual I posted to my Instagram in an attempt to educate people about how the silhouette of the 1860s is different than the modern silhouette.
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Hopefully you can see how my dress has the broad shoulders and smoothed out bustline of the 1860s silhouette. This is due to the fit of the bodice over a corset, the shoulder seams sitting an inch or so away from the actual shoulders, and strategic padding in the bust area.
I'm also extremely proud of the piping, which again took many hours. This was my first time ever trying piping. Basically it's when you sew cord into a strip of fabric and then sew that into a seam. It's a technique the Victorians used to reinforce seams that take a lot of strain, and it also looks very visually pretty. I'm especially proud of how my piping lines up with the cartridge pleating at the waist!
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I also did piping on the side back seams and the armhole seams (these seams in particular were commonly piped in the Victorian era).
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The other reenactors in my group have very high standards of authenticity, to the point that I feel a lot of pressure to make my Civil War dresses up to their standards. But I've learned a lot from them, and I'm glad they push me to use more historically accurate fabrics and construction techniques. And my work paid off because they were all really impressed with the silhouette and the piping of my dress!
Well there you go, my explanation of the professionalism of the dress came a bit early. (It's because my brain wants to do literally anything other than studying for the CPA exam, which is what I'm supposed to be doing at this moment.) But I still hope to post the nicer pictures my mom took sometime soon.