In preparation for the annual victorian ball in Bath (hosted by Izabela from Priorattire), I had to make an outfit from the first bustle era, so 1868-1876 roughly. Truthfully I started planning about a year ago, two or three weeks after I got home from the 1860s ball.
I absolutely loved this pink dress from 1869, so that was going to be my main inspiration for the day dress. After much research on Pinterest (see my board here) I cherry-picked from different fashion plates and extant gowns, to create my own version of this dress.
After further hours researching designs, this is what I did for the evening gown: Many fashion plates feature a white bodice and over-skirt, which was the perfect solution to make my hot-pink fabric suitable for evening-wear. Not that it generally would have been a problem to wear bright coulours, but since I am quite young, a lighter colour was more appropriate for me, and I really liked the idea of wearing partly white.
Finally, and I only remembered this days before the ball – someone had gifted me an old table-cloth to use for sewing, and I thought it would be great to make a dolman cape from it, to wear over my evening dress.