My 17th century shift

I finished my 17th century shift a while ago and here are, finally, some pictures. Unfortunately there are very few 17th century rooms in our flat, so the settings isn't quite right. I used a pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 4, a smock that supposedly have belonged to Charles II's queen Catherine of Braganza, or some of her ladies-in-waiting. The original is lavishly decorated with lace, but I made mine plain. I wanted to use this particular pattern as it has an oblong neckline that fits well with a 17th century gown with an off-the-shoulder neckline. It also have rectangular inserts cartridge-pleated There is a more eloquent post about the pattern here. to the sides instead of the usual triangular ones, which I wanted to try just for the fun of it.

17th century smock

I’ve been mulling of the 1660’s smock in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 4. As the original is believed to have belonged to Catherine of Braganza, it’s lavishly decorated with cutwork and other embellishments. I’m not a queen, however, and I don’t aim to make clothes that luxurious, so I want a plain smock for my 17th century gown. However, the cut is exactly what I want. It has an oval neckline, which would fit well under a gown from the period and it doesn’t have the usual triangular gores, so I think it will be fun to sew it as well. I haven’t seen any smock made after this pattern, though I’m sure it exists. Has anyone seen one?


A. The body of the smock. The broken line indicate that its folded. The oval is the neckline, with a split down the front.
B. A strip of cutwork (in the original) about 8 mm wide. You can’t see it, as it’s tiny, but it’s supposed to be folded too, at the top.
C. Sleeve. The broken line indicate that it’s folded. Gathered and sewn to B until the dot. In the original the end of the sleeve is cartidge pleated into a cuff.
D. A rectangular piece of fabric that has the same function as a triangular gore. The top is cartidge pleated and sewn to the bottom of B.
E. Underarm gusset
F. Neckband. It’s slightly shorter than the width of the neckline, so that has to be eased to the neckband.

Note that I haven’t bothered to make the measurements correct, this is just a diagram of the shape of the pattern pieces and where they will connect with each other. I hope it’s understandable. Yell if you want me to explain more.

I have got some linen gauze that is very sheer, whish I think will look quite lovely. I’m not going to have a cuff and instead fold up and pin the smock sleeve to the gown’s sleeve. At first I planned to omit any embellishment, but I’ve found some lace made out of linen thread that my grandmotehr have made. It’s about 1cm wide, so I think I will use that for pattern piece B. It’s not made from a 17th century pattern, but it’s handmade and I always try to incorporate something from my grandmoter in everything I sew. Usually that may mean just the thread (I inherited boxfulls) but I’m always happy to find use of something else from her stash. It’s gong to be completely hand-sewn, purely for practical purposes. I use my machine to attach pattern pieces and then finish everything else by hand, but this fabric is so sheer, that it will be more of a hassle to try to use tha machine and to make it look good, than doing it all by hand. Not weighing much and also washable, makes it a perfect project for me to drag around this summer and sew whereever I want.

A shifty question

Namely, what kind of chemise to go under a 17th century gown? The sleeves are easy- voluminous seems to be the keyboard. And though I have seen cuffs, the style I like is when there seems to but no cuff and all the excess fabric is folded, back or in loose pleats. Like here, where the shift sleeves seems to have been tucked up with the sleeve and then a decorative pin is used to keep it all in place:

The sleeves look like they have been either pinned up or basted to the gown’s sleeves.

(Black sleeve from a Swedish painting)
So the sleeves are no problem, but how to make the body of the shift? The neckline treatment can look very different. Looking through Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashions 4, I find that most of the shifts are versions of this (Or rather, thjis is a modern version of that...). I don’t think I’m too far-fetched is I assumes that these are made up that way:

It’s nothing wrong with this kind of chemise. It’s easy to make and the chemise itself looks very nice. I have one. I just don’t want it with a 17th century gown. Then these are many painting where you just see the edge of the shift along the neckline.

They could be the gathered kind of chemise, I suppose, but they look, at least in my eyes, to be much smoother. When we see more of it, the wrinkling gets more horizontal than vertical.

And lucky us! The very last pattern in Patterns of Fashion 4 is a shift that fits the bill. It is thought to have belonged to Catherine of Braganza and though it has very wide sleeves, though the neckline is shaped like a smooth oval with a slit in the front.

My books are still unpacked so I can’t give you a direct quote, but I’ve read in more than one book, that the shift was sometimes pulled out and folded over to make a simple collar. I think that would be pretty easy to do if you are wearing a Catherina of Braganza-type of shift.

Some even look like the slit is in place too!

To finish, let’s look at two examples of collars that imitates a folded out shift, if it isn’t the shift that imitates the collar.

This is a French gown, it could be a shift, but it’s so much more gossamer than the visible shift.

I really like the look of a shift that is folded to look like a collar, so that is the look I will go for. The Catherine of Braganza-shift is also unusual because it hasn’t triangular gores to give it width, but squares that are cartridge-pleated at the top. It would be fun to make a new pattern!

Note: In a try to be more consistent, I have tried to only use English picture sources and in case not, I will tell. However, the time frame is 1640s-1660s. I know that this will mean both puritans and Restoration, but I feel that the fashion didn’t change too dramatically under that period. Many of the paintings don’t have a more exact date than the decade. Also, if anyone wants to see the whole picture of one of my cropped ones, just tell me and I will post it.