The history of white wedding dresses is a popular topic, and a few related narratives have built up in both popular and academic writing: Queen Victoria was the first to wear a white gown for her wedding in 1840, and women began to copy her, creating a tradition. Queen Victoria was not the first to … Continue reading Before Victoria: the White Wedding Dress in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries (Part I)
Category: 1820s
The Clarissa Dress (Part III)
This one has a lot of progress images! When I cut out the sleeves, I figured that because the pattern (Regency Women's Dress, p.98) appeared to fit me at the wrist, I could just cut out the sleeve exactly as drawn. Not so! I sewed the seam on one and it was far too tight … Continue reading The Clarissa Dress (Part III)
The Clarissa Dress (Part Two)
So, after getting the bodice mostly ready to go, I turned to the skirt. The pieces were easy enough to cut out: if you look at the pattern (Regency Women's Dress, p.98), you can see that there are mostly rectangles, plus one gore on each side. It was fairly simple - I used the same … Continue reading The Clarissa Dress (Part Two)
The Clarissa Dress (Part One)
I like giving my projects names - in this case, it's the "Clarissa dress" because I made it to portray Clarissa Moody Wright (1804-1871) in Canton's Dairy Festival Parade. It was difficult to figure out exactly what date to aim for: Clarissa was ten years younger than her husband, but the man who was going … Continue reading The Clarissa Dress (Part One)
Regency Corsets (or Stays if you will)
My very first post to this blog was a kind of a summary of corset construction and style in the period 1790-1810. It's awkwardly written, because I was excerpting from a paper and summarizing and wasn't used to blogging like this! It seems like a good time to revisit the topic, now that I've spent … Continue reading Regency Corsets (or Stays if you will)
Mimic of Modes 