Regency officer and gentleman shirt

Pattern: Improvised (see below for dimensions)

Fabric: White linen

Haberdasheries: three mother-of-pearl buttons, red silk embroidery floss

After making the previous shirt, I read that Regency men’s shirts didn’t have ruffles on the sleeves. So I looked at paintings and fashion plates of Regency men, and though it is often hard to see, their shirts seem not to have ruffles in most cases, so I omitted them on this shirt. That made this shirt slightly different from the last one, which is nice, as I’m not that fond of making exactly the same thing twice. I also used a piece of fabric for the ruffles that was 1.5 times as long as the one I used for the previous shirt, as I thought the ruffles could do with a bit more fabric.

This type of shirt is referred to as ‘square cut’, because it consists almost entirely of squares and rectangles. The image below shows all the pieces except the collar, which is also a rectangle. Only the side bottom gussets are triangular. I cut the pieces on the grain, which makes it easier to get them neat than pinning a pattern to the linen would.

Dimensions (incl. seam allowances):

1: Body: 63 x 101 cm (cut 2)

2: Sleeves: 50 x 50 cm (cut 2)

3: Sleeve gussets: 14.5 x 14.5 cm (cut 2)

4: Neckline ruffle: 15 x 116 cm (cut 1)

5: Cuffs: 18 x 26 (cut 2)

6: Bottom side seam gussets: 9.5 x 9.5 x 13 cm triangles (cut 2)

Collar: 28 x 46.5 cm (cut 1; not in picture)

The shirt is machine sewn, with all hemming, and the buttonholes, done by hand.

 

 

 

 I read about embroidering a number on shirts to track progress, and did that here, too.