A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

Victoria and Bertie, 1844 It is hard to understand Victorian era purses without first understanding Queen Victoria and her long rein over England. Her influence was so pronounced that it greatly affected styles and her middle class attitude was reflected in fashion. - Victorian Era Purses It's easy to understand why this misconception exists.  The era is named for Victoria and therefore the fashion is referred to as Victorian, which implies that the fashions were created by her.  (I don't know where the idea that she had a "middle class attitude" comes from, though.)

I spoke about what I'm doing at my internship in general terms before, but I wanted to go into it with some specific examples. Lately, I've been going through a lot of medical supplies.  Three or four donations were made that consisted entirely of equipment, medications, etc. and fortunately just about everything in them was numbered.  Unfortunately: One donation doesn't have a list of items, just a gift agreement form that says, "1988.26.1-80: mostly medical equipment". One donation has some items labeled on the gift agreement, but with stretches of objects marked "unidentified medical tool". There are many boxes that are just full of stuff and took quite a while to go through.  On Tuesday I managed to get through roughly two shelves, when my usual rate is a whole shelving unit. I documented my process with one of the more tightly packed boxes to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with.   The box after I unpacked a small section of ...

Like everyone, I have a plethora of historical clothing I'd like to make in an ideal world where fabric is free and a seamstress does the tricky bits for me.  Yesterday, though, I set some concrete goals for myself for ... well, I'm calling the goal "Dress U 2013," but obviously I'd like to be done a bit before that. Goal One: An early 1910s lingerie dress with silk slip. I've been in love with the lingerie dress for a while, and with the 1910s as a whole.  Lingerie dresses by definition don't need expensive materials, which also suits my wallet.  The idea of a colored silk slip underneath came to me from my 1902 McCall's Magazine (which is early, but I plan to do more research to find out if the idea continued into the next decade): The white swisses, with black embroidered dot and inlays of black lace, are particularly effective over linings of rose pink or delicate green, but the prevailing mania for black and white makes a white silk slip th...

For my first review, I'd like to go with a "favorite" of mine - The Lady and the Highwayman.  It's an adaptation of a Barbara Cartland novel that, surprisingly, stars Hugh Grant (not that surprising, thought, as a lot of established actors seem to have worked on one or another of these).

The tallies: Do some posts on best/worst costume dramas, or just review a handful - 73%   Portrait costume analyses like American Duchess - 53%   Cataloguing in the museum, more details about what you've looked at - 40% Finish that series about the 1780s, doofus - 33%   Translating your symposium paper on "The Greek Myths of Fashion" into a series - 20%   Write about a specific time period/designer that I will name in the comments - 6%     All right!  I can see what you want.  I'll start off with a run of costume drama reviews.  I'll need a little time to take some screencaps, but I have Lots of Thoughts, so they might be worth the wait?

I had a very good time!  There were a few mishaps with my planned off-campus accommodations, but the classes themselves were great.  I got to meet people I'd only ever met online, see a lot of beautiful clothing, learn about some subjects I hadn't thought much about before, bought some amazing hairpins, and built up a good store of ambition. But I know what you really want - pictures.  (I freely admit that I'm not sure who most people in these are because I'm terrible with names and faces, so if you see yourself, please tell me!)