Creating a 1770s “Pouf”

The iconic tall hairstyles of the late 1770s are incomplete without a pouf. When you see portraiture of the period with ladies wearing ships and whole birds they are attached to these poufs rather then the hair itself. These are rather simple to make ( I made mine in an afternoon) and a good way to get the creative jucies flowing, for there is no rules when in comes to decoartion.

This are the pattern pieces, a base piece and an overlay piece. I used the pattern and instructions from the American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Beauty for my pouf.

The pouf base in made up of a layer of buckram for sturcture and a layer of white linen to cover it.

The first step was to cover the buckram with the linen which I did by hand using whip stitiches and white linen thread. 

Now my overlay layer in silk satin which I had to piece because I was limited to scraps. The overlay is bigger than the base because it will be tacked done to the base to form “poufs” and thus texture.

I first lined up the edges of both the silk overlay and the base and sewed it by hand using whip stitches.

I then randomly pinned the excess silk overlay until it poufed in a way that I was happy with.

Now another pattern pieces was the tube of the silk satin which would be attached to the perimeter of the pouf, again for texture and fabulously. The tube was gathered every six inches to form poufs.

The gathered tube was then postioned along the perimeter of the pouf and overlayed at the center back to form tails. This was sewn by hand

The tails at center back were folded over the underside of the pouf to form and bow and tacked down.

Now it was time for the fun part, decorations! The center back and center front got a bow of shantung to make the gown that would be worn with the pouf. I also added blue fabric flowers to the center of the bows and the two poufs paralleling the center front.

The center three poufs also got a velvet flower as well as.

On top of the pouf I also added a branch of paper flowers to the top of the pouf for height.

top view of my pouf