A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

I've been a bit confused lately as to what I ought to post, what people are interested in reading me babble about, so I thought I'd put up a poll of various things that I could go into.  I'll probably end up going into all of them at some point anyway, but order is important!  Especially as I'm working full time and don't feel as inclined to post as frequently as before - at least having a clearly interesting subject would get rid of the "hmm, what should I be typing?" timewasting. So there is now a little poll on the sidebar, under my bio.  Please vote!  It will close in a week's time, after Dress U. EDIT: Okay, I think the poll ought to show up better here:

I have now finished my first week at my new internship at the Chapman Historical Museum !  It is going so well.  (You can see some examples of their photograph collection here .) My job there is to catalogue the collections in PastPerfect while identifying objects that could potentially be deaccessioned or that need accession numbers.  I usually talk about fashion history research here, but I thought I'd go into more detail about this side of museum work.  And now I will answer the questions you probably don't have.

In my search for fabric-related quotes some time ago, I came across some others relating to fashion, sewing, and society.  Here they are, collected for your entertainment   The Artful Husband (William Taverner, 1717): The Fable of the Bees (Bernard de Mandeville, 1724): I like this one because it's such a universal - even today, you can see the same impulses driving changing trends. Dictionarium Britannicum (1736):  CABBAGE, whatever is purloin'd by Taylors and Mantua-Women from the Rayment they are to make up.  See a very ludicrous Account of it in the Tale of a Tub . The Gentleman's and London Magazine (1741): Select Trials (1742):   Ann Jones.   I know Mrs. Davis very well, she is a Mantua-maker, and lives near me by Bethlem-Wall , thro' Great Moorgate . ... I take in Clear-starching and Plain-work. ...   Lydia Walker .  I live in the Walk which leads from Holy Well-Mount , to Hoxton , and take in Quilting. Chapters XLIV and XLV of T

Long time, no post!  I've been conflicted about sharing the pictures Mom took of me at the Saratoga Battlefield because I don't like how I look in them, but I've finally decided to do so in hopes that I'll get some good advice. My favorite of the lot.

Since Coco Chanel and her chums made sunbathing a trendy pastime in the 1920s, the sun tan has barely been out of fashion. - Channel4 Around the mid-1920s, the fashionable set did an about face on tanning. ... when legendary arbiter of style, Coco Chanel, got tan while vacationing on a friend's Mediterranean yacht, the sun worshipping frenzy really began .- Cracked.com Coco Chanel popularized tanning in the 1920s, saying the tan was "in." - Oprah.com This weekend, I purchased the August 1901 issue of McCall's Magazine at an antiques fair.  Early in the magazine, I came across an article titled "The Preservation of Beauty in Summer".

Yesterday I had the gown mostly done - skirts sewn on and hemmed, but sleeve edges still raw and the lining not really trimmed or anything.  I tried it on over my petticoat and stays:

In my previous post on the caraco , I discovered that all of the French fashion plates labeled caraco in the Boston MFA depicted short jackets.  However, more research was needed, as French and English terms do not always or often line up.  This time, I decided to look at English sources. Walker's Hibernian Magazine, 1787