HSF#12... 1865 dress for Princess Royal Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa

Not quite finished with HSF#10... but already looking forward to the next project. :-)

HSF#12's requirements: pick a historical princess, queen, empress, duchess, etc., and create a dress that either she wore or could have worn.

Since I have an American Civil War ball coming up (September), I figured I would pick an 1865 ball gown.  It would need to be dark/black, since I'm trying to only use fabric from my stash for the rest of the year.  I originally wanted to do a dress for Queen Victoria, but all of the evening dresses (photos, paintings) I found for her were from at least a decade prior since she didn't go out in public after Prince Albert's death except for a few state occasions or official photos for various commemorations.  Plus, any evening dress she would have worn at the time would have been for a slightly older person than I am now and I want to be accurate in that context.  But, in my search for "queen victoria 1860s evening dress" I stumbled upon a few photos of another Victoria - the Princess Royal (Queen Victoria's eldest daughter).  Lo and behold, there were even a couple of photos of her in an 1860s BLACK evening dress (from the style of the bodice, skirt shape - round bell rather than elliptical, and sleeves - small/lacey, it looked like it may have been 1861-2 - probably in mourning for her father).   Plus, the dress is simple (as in, there aren't a million ruffles or fripperies to the nth degree; again, probably a reflection of being in mourning), which is what I was looking for.  Score, gown chosen - with a slight modification to the skirt (make it elliptical) and bodice (shallower bodice front point).

There are what look like two versions of a black dress: this (older?) one with bigger sleeves and a plainer skirt (with a few bows) and this (later?) one with smaller sleeves and skirt trim and edge ruffles.  The bodice looks to be the same one as a base, but perhaps it was modified and then paired with a different skirt?  Her hair is different (simpler in the first), so it's definitely photos from two different occasions.

My fabric is a poly-something that looks like a satin.  It's a dark slate blue, almost black and is on the thin side, so will definitely need to make a dark petticoat to wear under it.

The pattern I will use is from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 2.  The skirt will be based on the 1865 day dress (so it's elliptical), and the bodice will be slightly modified from the 1861-4 evening dress pattern (i.e., much shallower front point) to look like the 1865 peach silk linked below.  I have exactly 5 yards of fabric, so I have no wiggle room for mistakes (but, yay for multi-piece Victorian bodices that one can squeeze in between skirt panels).

For visual reference of the base bodice/skirt construction/shape, I will be using this peach silk (1865)  from the Met Museum.  Nice, simple, elegant lines, and the ability to zoom in closely to see seam placement is VERY helpful. :-)