A Most Beguiling Accomplishment

Patterns of Fashion 5: The content, cut, construction and context of bodies, stays, hoops and rumps c. 1595-1795  - Years in the making, and I think we're all very excited to have it out at last! A little background, if you're not familiar with it: Janet Arnold wrote the original two Patterns of Fashion  books (1660-1860 and 1860-1940) in the 1960s, and followed them up in 1985 with a third based on 1560-1620. A fourth was published posthumously on shirts, smocks, ruffs, etc. in roughly the same time period (she worked on Elizabethan and Shakespearian dress quite a bit), based on her original material, edited and added to by Jenny Tiramani (longtime professional costume designer with a passion for accuracy) and Santina Levey (a lace/embroidery specialist). Patterns of Fashion 5  is likewise based on her patterns and notes, but has been very extensively added to by Jenny Tiramani and Luca Costigliolo (also a costume designer; the two have worked together for a long ...

(In October, I attended the Costume Society of America Southeastern/Mid-Atlantic Symposium in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. My debut as a conference speaker! I presented this paper.) "Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood (née de la Pasture)", Howard Coster, ca. 1938; National Portrait Gallery x10669 Edmée Elizabeth Monica de la Pasture Dashwood (1890-1943), better known by her punning nom de plume E. M. Delafield, penned dozens of novels and plays about middle- and upper-class British society in her short life. She was already a successful author when Margaret Mackworth, Viscountess Rhondda, asked her to write a "space-filler" for the feminist literary magazine, Time and Tide , in 1929. This filler, very much based on the author's life and acquaintances, was titled Diary of a Provincial Lady , serially printed, and eventually published in book form in 1930. The unnamed protagonist's social standing is only indirectly stated: she is certainly below the elega...

Hello! It's been a while - due to American politics, personal issues, and other factors, I just haven't had the energy to spend on historical sewing or writing about fashion (beyond what I do for AskHistorians; link to my profile if you'd like to read some short articles on a variety of social history topics) - but last month, I attended the 2018 CSA Mid-Atlantic/Southeastern Biregional Symposium in Shippensburg, PA. It was quite a trip! I was so happy to meet up with so many fashion history scholars, and particularly to meet Ann Wass (of Riversdale House Museum ), Mackenzie Anderson Sholtz (of Fig Leaf Patterns ), and Lydia Edwards (author of How to Read a Dress ). You can see all of my photos of the exhibition at the Shippensburg Fashion Archives and Museum on Instagram ! I delivered a paper of my own, which I hope to turn into a podcast episode/blog post soon, but what really thrilled me was the presentation Mackenzie gave, "A Transitional Corset and its Companion ...

December 30, 1786 FRENCH FASHIONS. We said in the second Book of this second Year that women hardly go out in the morning but in night caps, when they aren't dressed; we should add here that many wear a chapeau-bonnette  over the night cap. In this manner, they give an air of half-dress which saves them from the great undress that the simple night caps, which would never be supportable without fashion, present to the eye. How was this fashion begun? We dig into our heads to imagine it, and do not succeed. It is impossible for us to conceive it, when we think that there are so few women who have a seductive air in a night cap. Everything that we can find is that women have decided to renounce looking pleasant during this part of the day. Could we concede this beautiful invention without fear that we will be reproached for pronouncing some blasphemy against the Ladies' taste? The Woman dressed in a violet satin gown wears over the night cap a gauze  chapeau-bonnett...

December 30, 1786 [The issue begins with a long remark on the interchange of fashion between France and England, "whose eyes are constantly fixed on one another".] Consequently, one should not be astonished if we happen to give as English Fashion what was some time ago French Fashion, and as French Fashion was we had already published as English Fashion. Men's redingotes, that we should call Franco-Anglomane  gowns, having come from Englishwomen to Frenchwomen, and this Fashion existing still in both countries, one should not be surprised today if we show Englishwomen dressed like Frenchwomen. The Englishwoman drawn in PLATE I wears a man's redingote of olivish wool, with three wide collars falling very low to below the shoulders, with large revers lined with violet satin, with violet satin cuffs, and trimmed on the cuffs, on the hips, and on the fronts with wide white mother-of-pearl buttons. A sort of belt of the same wool, trimmed with the same buttons, bin...

December 20, 1786 FRENCH FASHIONS. Two women's Busts. The first, dressed in a pink satin gown, wears a hat with a very high crown, made of satin with pink stripes and Sky blue stripes, trimmed on the front in three rows of large bows of yellow ribbons with green plain stripes down the middle and pinked pink stripes on the edges, and on the back with three large bows of matching ribbons. In the middle of the three rows of large ribbon bows rises an aigrette of seven medium plumes in white, pink, black, and green. A veil of satin matching that used on the hat hangs from the back. The crown of this hat is, so to speak, the only hat crown which is worn today. They are made in different satins with stripes of different colors - blue and white, black and pink, yellow and black, violet and white, etc. The Woman's hair is all frizzed en tapet , and six curls, placed in three rows, hang over her chest. Her hair, behind, is pulled up in a floating chignon . On her neck, a ...

December 20, 1786 A young Englishman in full dress. Here, men never appear without a sword; it is easy to see that in London, this practice is not the same. One can see that in London, they are also fully dressed in a frock coat. The one worn by the young Englishman is of a puce little velvet on a yellowish ground. It is trimmed with flat, medium-sized gilded buttons, all plain; it is lined with a puce silk twill, mixed. Under this frock coat, he wears a gilet of sea-green satin, with wide pink stripes forming large squares; breeches of black satin, buttoned on the sides with seven buttons, and the garters of which are fastened with narrow rectangular silver buckles. White stockings. In his watch pockets, two watches, from one of which hangs a simple cord of Sky blue silk, with a large key at the end, and from the other hangs a cord of silk and gold,also with a large key. Her shoe buckles are silver, in very wide squares, and trimmed with pearls. On his neck, wrapped th...

December 20, 1786 [Before the plate description is a long comment on how devoted the Authors were to their Work, and how unhappy they are that German Subscribers were complaining about them being put together wrong - ironically, in the previous issue plates one and three were switched around - when apparently the issues they were receiving were counterfeits, containing plates and text not drawn or written by the Authors. However, they accepted the complaint that the styles were out of date by the time they arrived there, several weeks after they were originally drawn.] ENGLISH FASHIONS. While Englishmen and Englishwomen nearly always seem negligent in their dress, especially in Paris, where they successfully get past all the airs in toilette and parure  which overwhelm us and hold us ceaselessly in a reserved or stiff composure, they have nonetheless their own most formal dress, or Court dress. It is perhaps more curious than useful to present it, since in this Foreign cou...

December 10, 1786 ENGLISH FASHION. Never, perhaps, have colors been better united and nuanced in an entire outfit than in the one in which the young Englishwoman is shown in this Plate; never will one find colors which, taken together, would give more grace  or sweetness to the face. We do not hesitate to say that our Print presents a perfect whole. Agility in her figure, softness and liberty in her composure, harmony in her dress: everything is found here. This young Englishwoman is dressed in a violet satin redingote, with sleeves à la Marinière , trimmed with large mother-of-pearl buttons. Under this redingote, there is a gilet and a petticoat of canary's tail  satin; the petticoat is flounced with a narrow white gauze flounce. And over the front of this petticoat, a long apron of black taffeta. She wears a full gauze kerchief, trimmed in three rows. Her hair is frizzed all over in large curls, two of which fall on her chest, and behind, her ...

December 10, 1786 To be precise, it is not the leading fashion that we show in this Plate: it is not even fashionable, since frock coats must be of puce , black, or London chimney-soot  colored wool, but it is a dress which could become fashionable for the reasons that we gave in the sixteenth  and twentieth Books  of the first Year . We have discussed, in this Book, how a fashion is born: this one could be born in the same manner. The young man who appeared in this outfit has been fixed, and applauded by many women; he has been complimented on his taste by many young people, and it is a certainty that his outfit will be adopted. When he would not be it, one would not have the right to seriously reproach us for having proposed it, being in the order of possibilities that he be it. We would have to respond to those who would mark the mood, that we have been prevented in this attempt by the Author of Fashionable Magazine , or Magasin des Modes   Anglaises , wh...

(Lately, I haven't had much appetite for sewing, or for writing substantive blog posts, so I'm going to bring back my translations in order to provide content and give me an outlet!) December 10, 1786 For showing winter dress, it would not suffice to give a Lady fully dressed in a satin gown (1); it would be even worse to show her covered with a pelisse and carrying a muff, to have the full dress. The former would show the effect of the gown, uncovered by the pelisse, and in the way that she would appear at an Assembly; but the latter would show the full outfit, and in the way she would appear in a Promenade or at the Spectacle. The former was necessary for the purpose; the latter is no less so. The practice of wearing pelisses does not survive with as much strength as in previous years (the fashion of mantelets, and, even more, wool redingotes, have given it a rude push!), but it is not past: one could say that at present one is still not fully dressed without a peliss...

Episode four of the podcast is live! This time I'm discussing the history of regional dress in Europe, "national costume" schemes, and where most modern folk dress traditions come from. I will be posting an illustrated, written version of the episode here - but not very very soon, because I'll be going off this weekend to see Anastasia  on Broadway and the Visitors to Versailles  exhibition at the Met! The next episode will be on court dress, addressing the English and French courts as well as a number of others. I don't know which yet - it always depends on what sources I can find - but I really want to address other regions, because fashion history does tend to be so focused on the two above. Spain and Sweden at the very least!

It was kind of a surprise to me that I'd get involved in fountain pen mania, but thinking about it from a more distant perspective, it seems pretty obvious. It's not just that I'm into historical fashion - I wear clothes I've made from repro 1950s patterns, sew on a machine with a treadle, use a safety razor, heat food up on the stove/in my toaster oven rather than a microwave, walk everywhere, make yoghurt, and cook everything from scratch. I'm an eccentric. It's not that I reject "modern life" or anything like that - I just enjoy using/wearing things that are solid and well-made (well, that's debatable when it comes to my dresses), I like how these things look and function, and, possibly due to my straitened social life, I don't really care if I come off as weird. Fortunately, people seem to find it charming rather than off-putting, anyway. Fountain pens first came into my scope in a discussion online about little luxuries you do for your...

At last, Julie and I have basically wrapped up all of the rewards for that Kickstarter campaign we ran some time ago! But whatever the roadblocks, all of the sewn rewards have been distributed, all of the digital patterns have been sent out, and I have passed on all of the ones meant to be printed to Julie and contacted anyone who filled out the survey as needing help. Many, many, many thanks to everyone who supported us. Going forward, however, I will not be with Dragonrose Historic Patterns, but will instead be running Mimic of Modes Historic Patterns . This really doesn't make much of a difference to you - I can still fulfill the "future pattern" rewards, and the overarching ethos of my patterns will still be the same: they'll be based on actual garments from museum or personal collections, some that are representative of the "average" and some that are interesting variations. I do plan to have standard sizes available as well as the custom sizi...

I haven't done a post about a painting in a long time! But this painting is the St. Lawrence County Historical Association 's Object of the Week, and I'm taking the opportunity to write more for those members of our Facebook page who'd like more information than will tidily fit in a post there. (And to link back to the museum where I curate for those readers here who might like to follow it!) Portrait of Susan Brown Moody, 1830-1835; SLCHA 1988-8.1 This portrait was initially purchased by the museum at Sotheby's in 1988 as "Clarissa Moody Wright in her wedding bonnet". Let's really dig into the clothing on view here, and then I'll talk some more about why this piece is of such interest to the SLCHA. A dark-colored gown is very common on sitters in folk portraits, but it's not always so common to see this much detail! Quite often, the dress is a kind of dark mass that sets off the whitework on the cap and pelerine. Here, we can see tha...