Dressmakers in the regency era

The amount of work a dressmaker has and the number of seamstresses employed would determine how long it takes to make a garment. Of course, the trimming and such also matters.  A court dress could well take five days if the seamstresses worked on nothing else. If one required a garment made expeditiously, one could pay extra, and it could usually be done.

A London dress maker could usually make one faster than a village  seamstress, though even a village seamstress could finish a simple dress in three days, if she had no other work.

One must recall, there were no printed patterns, so the lady and the dressmaker would have to confer on which style dress she wanted and then choose the fabric. If the lady had never been to the store before, she would be measured  and a unfinished muslin or linen mock up dress made and fitted to her. The most skilled part of the procedure was drawing off the pieces and then cutting them properly. The dressmaker had to be able to see the pattern behind the fashion illustrations.

The muslin pieces would be used as pattern pieces when the material was cut. Then the fabric pieces would be pinned together. Next, someone would baste the seams. All this is the time consuming part. The customer was supposed to come for the final fitting wearing the stays she would wear with the dress. Dress makers did not usually make the stays. Usually, the mock up dress served as the lining for the actual finished product.

The dress would be tried on and any final adjustments made. Then seamstresses would sew all the seams and add any trimmings and tidy up the gown.

An example of this is Madame delacroix from Bridgerton, she is a modiste in london, and the show gives a good look into what life would be like as a modiste in this time period