The Dickens Dresses

A Tale of Two Hittys begins in the year 1868. During the era, little girls wore bloomers, petticoats, a chemise (loose cotton undershirt), stockings and boots with buttons or laces. Depending on the age of the child, she might have to wear a corset. The dresses were often elaborate with lots of trimmings. For outerwear a little girl needed a coat, and the coat of choice was a paletot (pronounced “pal-uh-toe”). The paletot was a woman’s or girl’s jacket, usually worn over a skirt with a crinoline or bustle.

Now, if you remember in the book, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, Rachel Field describes Hitty’s Dickens outfit:

“the watered-silk dress with draped skirt, fitted waist, and innumerable bows… the blue velvet pelisse embroidered with garlands no bigger than pinheads… the little feathered hat and the muff of white eiderdown…”
from HITTY: HER FIRST HUNDRED YEARS

*Illustration by Dorothy P. Lathrop from HITTY: HER FIRST HUNDRED YEARS*

I believe Rachel Field was confused about the word pelisse and really meant to say paletot instead. A pelisse was a full-length, high waisted coat worn by women in the Regency period of the early 19th century. It would have looked quite out of place over the full skirts of the mid-19th century. So I will call Hitty’s coat a paletot. Here is a picture of a pelisse from 1817 and a paletot from 1864. Note the difference in the width of the skirts.

*Pelisse from 1817 (left) compared to Paletot from 1864 (right)*

When Mekitty Dickens was younger, she would have also had a paletot for winter wear. Here is a picture from La Mode Ilustrée in 1868, showing a girl of Mekitty’s age, next to an actual photo of Mekitty wearing a paletot from 1869. Note the similarity of skirt, jacket and the hat tilted forward over the head.

*Paletot from 1868 and photo of Mekitty* (*posted by janechapman_1 on Ancestry.com*)

For Kitty, I created a Dickens dress inspired by the photo of Mekitty. Her green silk paletot is trimmed with forest green velvet and has navy blue Chinese frog closures. The skirt is green and blue striped silk. Her straw hat has green velvet ribbon trim and a single pink ribbon rose. Now Kitty is dressed as elegantly as Hitty was when she met Charles Dickens in the book.

UPDATE: November 2021

This month I recreated Kitty’s outfit from the cover of the book, using fabric from Spoonflower. Kitty’s green paletot is made from Cotton Voile and the skirt is Polyester Satin. I was not entirely pleased with the result. The Cotton Voile seemed very stiff, even after washing, and it wrinkled terribly. I found that it helped to spritz the fabric with water and steam the wrinkles away. If I make another, I will use Cotton Poplin or Organic Cotton Sateen instead, which doesn’t seem to wrinkle as badly as the Cotton Voile. The striped satin skirt was easy to sew, but the fabric does ravel a lot. I had to finish all the seams with Fray Check before sewing. All in all, Kitty is happy with the result, and she is excited to show off her new outfit!

*Front and back views of Kitty’s Dickens Dress*

UPDATE: February 2022

Kitty complained that her Cotton Voile jacket was too stiff, so I ordered some of Spoonflower’s Satin fabric to match the skirt. I like the result a lot better, and it looks more like silk. Maybe someday I try printing the jacket on real silk fabric. But at the moment Kitty will have to make do with the polyester Satin fabric.

*Kitty’s new paletot made from Spoonflower Satin fabric*

Posing next to Kitty in this photo is my Michael Langton Hitty. This Hitty is made of resin, and she is a nearly exact replica of the original Hitty owned by Rachel Field. I recreated her Dickens dress from the illustration in the book, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years.

*Kitty with my Michael Langton Hitty in their Dickens dresses*

The fabric for Hitty’s paletot is Microsuede from Fabric on Demand, and her skirt is Spoonflower’s Organic Cotton Sateen. Anyone who has tried to dress small dolls knows that there are issues with fabric drapability. I really wanted to find velvet for the paletot, but all the samples I ordered had a stiff backing. This Microsuede has a velvety appearance, but it is more flexible, although still stiffer than I would like.

For the finishing touch, I crocheted Hitty’s muff and a couple of hats. Maybe someday I will write up the directions and share it on the website. If you know how to crochet and would like to try the pattern, please Contact Me, and I will email you a copy. Also, if there is enough interest, I will create a tutorial.

UPDATE: May 2022

Recently I ordered a yard of My Fabric Designs’ Cotton Silk, which I thought might be perfect for Kitty’s Dickens outfit. You can read more about my review of this fabric in Hitty Fabrics Part 1. This will be my third version, and I believe the third time is the charm. The colors of the printed Cotton Silk are more muted than the Spoonflower fabrics, which works quite well for an antique dress. The color is hard to capture in the photos, but it is a beautiful avocado green.

My Fabric Designs’ Cotton Silk is a lightweight, soft and DREAMY fabric. It may cost a little more than the 100% cotton fabrics, but considering how long it takes to create some of these tiny dresses, it makes sense to buy the best material you can.

I usually put Fray-Check on my pattern pieces after cutting them out to keep them from fraying. However, Fray-Check darkens the edges of the Cotton Silk. This is why it is important to always test Fray-Check on a scrap of fabric before using. As an alternative, I used a product called, Amazing Glue which I ordered from the Doll Artisan Guild. It finished the edges nicely and dried clear.

*Fray-Check applied to pieces on the left, Amazing Glue applied to pieces on the right*

First, I made the skirt. I used Amazing Glue to seal all the edges before sewing. The Cotton Silk gathered nicely with hardly any wrinkles. The skirt is a simple rectangle with a snap closure in the back.

The paletot jacket was a lot more challenging. For one thing, it is lined, and all the edges must be sewn very precisely so that the darker green borders will appear even. But the most difficult part was making real frog closures instead of fake printed ones. I tested several types of cord before deciding to use a vintage crochet thread called “Superyarn Tie Artsilk,” which was the perfect color of navy blue.

For each frog, I started with two 6” long pieces of cord. I made a small loop in the center and secured it with Amazing Glue. After that dried, I made another small loop to the left of it, and then the final loop on the right side. You can see the steps involved in making each frog closure. The amazing glue dries quickly, but there is still a lot of fiddly detail work to get the loops even. Not for the faint of heart!

I then made custom buttons using black sequins wrapped with navy blue sewing thread.

Making and sewing on the six frog closures took longer to make than the entire outfit! However, I think they add a touch of authenticity to the jacket which the fake version lacked. The best part is, Kitty is quite happy with the finished product, and she much prefers the newest Cotton Silk version to the first two attempts. She can be quite demanding when it comes to her clothing. Doesn’t she look smashing?