Brunswick Jacket 2

Brunswicks are considered to be a travel garment of sorts.  Something fashionable, but practical.  Much like Riding Habits can be worn.  It's much easier to fit in a carriage, go visiting, or shopping in something not full length.  The Brunswick jackets also come with the added benefit of a hood.  It can be a very warm outfit when traveling in a cold coach for a few hours.  It is more of an upper class garment, not surprisingly.

Fabric
Silk is the most common in surviving garments, but that doesn't mean it was the only choice (it just means they were more "valued" and saved).  Many portraits look like taffeta, two extants are made from quilted satin (one, two), another is a watered silk, and I used a corded silk.

 

There is one portrait of a printed cotton and Barbara Johsons book of swatches shows a manchester cotton (small check).  The Colonial Williamsburg Milliners used a similar pattern in silk, which the amazing Susan Parris used as inspiration for one of her dolls.

  

While other fabrics, like wool, don't have any references it doesn't mean they didn't exist.  If you want a comfortable, easy, and warm fabric wool would qualify well.

Waistcoat
It can be low or high neckline.

You can also decide how the jacket will attach to the waistcoat itself.  I chose to make a separate waistcoat which the hood was attached to.  The jacket simply pins to the front when wearing.  Another option is to make the waistcoat fronts and have them attach at the shoulder and side seams.  A final option is to make false fronts where the fashion fabric attaches to the jacket front seam.  The lining encompasses both pieces.  In the last two cases the jacket back is higher on the neck to meet the waistcoat neckline.

Sleeves

Cuff or Flounce.  You can see both in the images above.  I chose a cuff because my fabric had too much body for a flounce.

The bottom part of the sleeve is a very simple trapezoid that whips into the main sleeve.  The seam is left open at the wrist for a few inches so it can be more fitted.

Hood

It's no different than a cloak hood in patterning.  You can gather or pleat up the back (even put a bow on it, as Janea showed us).  It pleats into the neck line.

Lining

I lined the main body with linen to just below the waist, as well as the sleeves.  The lower sleeves and hood I did in a taffeta.  You can also line the skirt with a fashion fabric.

Trim

Usually out of the same fabric, pleated or gathered.  Although, I have seen a few portraits with contrast fabric or gauze.

They are all fairly heavily trimmed.  Around the hood, down the front, around the hem, on cuffs or flounces, sleeve hem, and up the center of the waistcoat.  You also see bows on the cuffs/flounces and center front on the low necklines.

There are many other details that you can find in examples/portraits which makes this garment so unusual and customized.  The hem can dip in back or run straight, corner or curve in front.  Wear it with a habit shirt, kerchief, or ruffles.  The hair tends to be done up in a very fashionable manor, occasionally with a cap or bow.  Granted, these are formal portraits and sitting with a fancy hairstyle is easier than traveling with it.  There's even a slight variation to the Brunswick with a full length skirt called a Jesuit.

Brunswick Jacket

The first inside and out of the year, my Brunswick jacket.  This was started, not surprisingly, in another Burnley and Trowbridge workshop.  I'll try to do the next post on the history and variants of this garment (there are a lot!).  What defines a Brunswick is a sacque back jacket with a waistcoat-like front, hood, and removable long sleeves.  Now, the waistcoat varies in appearance, as do the trimmings, cuffs, etc.  But, we'll get into all that in the next post.

I chose to make my ensemble out of a gorgeous yellow corded silk.  It has a rather stiff weight to it, so it works wonderfully as a winter garment.  I wore it outside for two hours earlier in December without feeling chilled (then my feet got cold).  It's lined with silk taffeta in the hood and lower sleeves.  Everything else is lined in plain white linen.

I made the waistcoat a separate garment (options!).  I wanted a little bit of extra warmth AND the option to use a stomacher front and quickly create a pet-en-l'air.  The trimming all over the garment is just pleated self-fabric.  I ended up doing death head buttons, despite promising myself I wouldn't (it's almost like an addiction).  However, the fabric just wasn't working well to cover buttons and metal seemed out of place.

As you can see here, the back is only one layer of fabric rather than two.  Lacing up the back allows for more adjustment in size.  Useful since the jacket is always adjustable.

You can also see the extra piece of fashion fabric at the back top.  The jacket neckline is lower so it wouldn't do to have white linen peaking out!

The jacket construction is just like a regular sacque back gown or jacket.  The laces across the lining in back keep the garment "fitted" to the body, although not so much as English gowns would be.  One of my ties apparently popped loose and needs to be re-tacked (oops).  The lining attaches to the fashion fabric just before it ends to keep from having too much of a sail on windy days.  I trimmed the separate sleeve cuffs with more pleats and silk ribbon bows.  The lower sleeves are separate and basted in.

The side pleats are a bit easier to see here.  Everything is double pleated and the side pleats do have pocket slits.  The back neck is finished with an extra piece that folds to the inside.  I chose to leave the skirts unlined since my fabric was weighty enough for all the pleating.  Much more would have been bulky, especially in back.

The trimming continues all the way around the hem.  The double back pleats (deep enough to just barely overlap inside) are tacked down on top for a few inches.  The lower sleeves have a few inches left open on the seam to get your hand through (they're rather tight) and possibly show off the lovely ruffles on your shirt.  The hem has a slight dip in length in back as well.

Pin the jacket to the waistcoat over a habit shirt with a cravat and pair with a matching petticoat and we're ready to travel!