134 Maj Ringgaard Cut, Stitch and Fabrics: Female Dress in the Past 200 Years Maj Ringgaard Chapter 10 F abrics, their cut and designs change over time. Knowing where to place seams, darts, openings and which type of fastener to use helps to create the right shape and look when copying costumes from paintings, photographs and other visual images. This chapter presents examples of how the mounting and placing of the opening of a dress changed in the course of the 19th and early 20th century, with the main focus on the 19th century. It examines where and when hook s and loops, buttons, zippers, padding and boning were used and where the side seams, gores and darts were placed, and which fabrics were preferred in costumes from this period. E qually importantly, when examining a historical dress, k nowing these details can help you date it correctly. Keywords : fashion, sewing machine, sewing techniques, stitching, fabric, fastenings, historical dress, tailoring. Creating the right historic costumes for a film or a play is often a balance between costs, time and opportunity. A splendid illusion can be brutally spoiled in a moment when a glance at the back of a young Victorian woman reveals a zipper in her dress. On the other hand, neat little details like a special lacing or the right kind of garter on the heroine’s thigh makes the experience of looking at a historic scene even better, as for example in the opening scene of the movie Dangerous L iaisons , where actress Glenn Close is dressed by her servants and the dress is closed by stitching. Details like these make the film appealing even to the connoisseur. DRESS: DESIGN AND MATERIALS The typical female dress of the 18th century consisted of a dress open at the front with a petticoat or skirt. This type of open dress, the mantua, made the front part of the skirt visible. The gap at the front from the waist upwards was covered by a stomacher, a stiff