Lightweight Cotton Wrapper

I'd been wanting to make an 18th century style wrapper for ages. I had made a wearable mockup in 2023, but didn't have any stash fabrics I wanted to use for the next attempt.

But earlier this year I came across a great fabric for it - not historically accurate, but well suited to a more fantastical version of a wrapper. It was a 100% cotton duvet cover from the thrift store, with a digital print of a foggy evergreen forest, with a dark green lining.

I'd never really considered duvet covers as a fabric source before (despite having seen other people make clothes out of them) because I don't like duvets and never think about them, but I saw a bit of that tree print sticking out as I walked by and it caught my attention. Very convenient how they come with a co-ordinating lining in the same size!

I don’t remember what the size was because I threw out the tag when I first bought it and took it apart, but the resulting fabric panels were each 2.54 metres by 2.15 metres. There was piping around the edge and I saved the cord from that.

This style of simple T shaped wrapper was popular through the entire 18th century, and was an informal "undress" garment for wearing at home. From what I've seen in portraits they appear to have been cut larger in the late 17th and early to mid 18th century, and tighter towards the end of the century.
A lot of sources call them banyans, but from what I understand it's the more fitted ones are banyans and these loose ones are wrappers? Unsure. I have a pinterest board with many examples of both though.

c. 1735-40, The Met.
(Though The Met is not good at dating clothing.)

I came across this pattern diagram years ago on pinterest and couldn't find the source, but then eventually someone on tumblr identified it and found a log of the website it came from on the internet archive.

(source)

It says the images originally came from a book called Histoire du Costume, Volume 10, 1678-1725 by Maurice Leloir. The book text isn't on the website page, only the pictures and captions.

I'm ignoring those two centre front extension bits and just doing the basic tunic shape with a simpler collar style.

Since this kind of pattern is very large and mostly straight lines I didn't make a paper pattern, I just measured and drew the lines on the fabric.

The mockup I'd made a couple years before was a bit smaller than I wanted, but it still fit, so I made the sleeves and upper body a bit looser. 

Here's my very messy sheet of measurements. 

I made the sleeves extra long because I wanted wide turned up cuffs. The underarm area is a bit rounded instead of being a sharp angle, which adds some more room in a similar way to gussets.

I cut out the lining all in one piece, folded at what will be the top and centre front so it's all symmetrical.

I trimmed the bottom edge to be rounded so the corners where it meets the side piece were at right angles, which is important to keep the hem smooth and even. 

Before cutting the outer layer I had to change the tree fabric around a bit. The print was arranged landscape style on the rectangular piece of fabric, which meant I couldn't cut it all in one piece. 

It was also much wider than the length of the wrapper pattern. 

I figured out roughly where I wanted it to be placed in order to best capture the tree gradient, and tore the excess strip off the light edge of the fabric.

I cut the remaining piece in half width-wise, sewed the two light edges together, and trimmed and pressed open that seam.

I now had a rectangle of fabric from which to cut the outer body as one with the trees growing in the proper direction on both the front and back.

It took a lot of fussing to get the lining piece lined up, and as you can see it's slanted because I lined the top fold up with the seam. The grainline must have been a little bit off.

I cut that out using the lining as the pattern, and cut open the centre front up to the seam.

On that top bit I cut in a little ways on either side to make it a T shaped opening, just like I do for my shirts.

Since the tree pieces were too narrow to get the full sleeves in, I pieced on the rest with that strip I'd torn off the top.

I sewed the side seams on both the outer and lining pieces, clipping the inward curve under the arm.

Then I pinned and sewed the entire outer edge right sides together, excluding the cuffs and collar opening. This took quite a while.

I turned it right sides out and pressed that big long seam open, and then into a flat edge.

The sleeve ends were pulled out through the neck hole one at a time and also sewn right sides together.

The collar is a rectangle shoved into the top part of the T shaped opening. You can see the same kind of collar fairly well on this blue damask wrapper in the V&A if you zoom in on the pictures.

Inserting the collar is the one thing I wish I'd done a bit differently. I should have made it in 2 pieces with a seam along the top. Not because I care much if the inner half matches the lining, but because the fabric is thin and a seam there would have added more stability. 

As it is I ended up sticking a scrap of cotton twill tape in there to give it more structure. I also wish I hadn't machine sewn the first edge in, because the corners didn't line up with the seam along the top. I could have lined them up more easily if I'd done it by hand, and it wouldn't have taken very much longer.

 But alas, I machine sewed it on and folded in and whipstitched the rest of the edges.

When I first tried it on the turned up cuffs started to slip down immediately. I don't think this would be as likely to happen with a stiff silk or wool, but this soft cotton doesn't have the structure to hold itself up. I considered pinning them up with little safety pins, but then remembered I have a pair of inherited blue-green rhinestone brooches. 

I stuck them on the cuffs and they're holding them up nicely. Unfortunately they do hang down in front, which causes them to smack into things sometimes, but if I get too annoyed someday I can replace them. If I do that it'll probably be with hooks & bars, or maybe snaps. 

I did consider tacking them up, but that would make washing and ironing more annoying. Not that this will need washing very often at all, but still.

Because of the wonky angle the sleeve piecing is very asymmetrical, but that's ok. The left cuff mostly covers up the most obvious part of it.

I'm very happy with the fit, and I love the colours.

Cutting the lining all in one made it shorter than it could have been if I'd cut the lining in the same way as the outer, but thankfully it's still a good length. A few cm longer would have been nice too, but I could have easily made it too long, which would be treacherous for walking up stairs.

Someday I'll make another one in a more 18th century appropriate fabric.