Antique Victorian Bodice

This is the bodice that goes with the skirt I showed you yesterday.

The bodice is made of the same silk brocade the skirt is made of.  It has a black velvet trim to outline the black silk.  The vest and collar are of white silk, a white chiffon-like fabric and overlaid with crocheted-like lace.  There is a dark brown stain on it's left shoulder and across the chest area.  The stain does not show on the black silk or black velvet.

 

 You can see the brown stain well in this picture.

 This shows detail of the crocheted lace.

The bodice opens at the vest area on it's left side.  There are hooks that the vest hooks to under the velvet.

This picture shows the hooks to close the vest.  It also shows the stains on the lining which is a brown polished cotton.

The hooks go all the way down so the vest can hooked at the bottom of the bodice

On the right front of the bodice the lace is just tacked under the velvet collar.

At the back, the decorative velvet color shows.

This is shows the back of the bodice  with a hook that hooks to the skirt.

This is the underneath of the velvet collar which is just tacked down at the top.

The collar is basted on.  It hooks in the back of the neck.

The sleeves are fairly tight and are trimmed in black velvet.

Inside the sleeve is a layer of black silk that is stitched to the brown polished cotton lining;

 This shows the lining in the front of the bodice.  The vest area goes on top of this area.

 I put markers to show where the vest hooks under the black velvet trim in front.

On the underside of the bodice, the lining has a bit of padding in the front of the armhole as marked in the picture.

 The bodice boning.

 On the font sides, there is a bit of stitching to hold the front fabric to the lining at the waist.

 There are two hooks for hanging.

The boning has a small hole on the end and a stitch in it keeps it in place.

The collar has a little edging of chiffon along the collar edge.

 This shows the edging close up from the outside.

 Detail of the velvet collar