February 1835 RECEIPTS. FRUITS IMITATING NATURE. Are made by means of wooden shells; (the color of the stone and containing an almond,) overlapped with an imitation of the Fruit itself, made by means of leaden moulds into which sugar boiled sufficiently has been poured. When taken from the mould, the sugar is varnished with isinglass; and … Continue reading Godey's Lady's Book, February 1835
Category: 1830s
Godey's Lady's Book, January 1835
Recently I spent some time in St. Albans, Vermont, a town up near the Canadian border. There you will find a small bookstore called The Eloquent Page, which has an entire bookcase full of Godeys, Petersons, and the like, and two or three more with books on fashion history written in the 20th and 21st centuries. … Continue reading Godey's Lady's Book, January 1835
Before Victoria: White Wedding Dress (Part II)
So, previously I showed you a lot of examples of actual white or white-ish gowns worn for weddings, including fashion plates (as they are intended to be prescriptive of real clothing - they exist to tell you what you can/should wear); these prove at least that white was worn. Now I'm going to follow that up … Continue reading Before Victoria: White Wedding Dress (Part II)
Before Victoria: the White Wedding Dress in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries (Part I)
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)
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 