Yes, I was steadfast about not showing pictures of the mockup, but that's because it was made out of blue jeans and without quite the attention to detail that it should have had. But the real version is much more presentable and won't embarrass me. Both halves, on the floor: The fabric I'm using for … Continue reading 1911 Corset pictures
1795-1805 Short Stays
Background research here, dress diaries here, here, here, here, here. Mockup to test methods of inserting cup and length of strap on the left, actual version with thread-tracing on the right The stays were a good experiment and I don't think they were a failure, but I'm not sure I'd make them the same way … Continue reading 1795-1805 Short Stays
The Robe à la Piémontaise
A while back, when I added all of the MFA's Gallerie des Modes plates (minus the ones that are quartered to show four hairstyles) to my fashion history Pinterest boards, I made some non-decade boards where I could group 18th century extant garments, plates, etc. by type. One group was just "misc", as I had … Continue reading The Robe à la Piémontaise
Mildly interesting corset identification
Yesterday, in passing, I posted a link to a corset: MMA 2000.169.2 When I went into the library to look for a book on walking sticks, I wandered in the fashion history section and noticed Corsets: A Visual History, which features pages and pages of corset advertisements. There was one in a National (that's the … Continue reading Mildly interesting corset identification
Early Brassieres
After adjusting my corset pattern this morning so that it would be an inch higher in the front (I realized I had had the whole corset mockup up too high before, and it was actually not as mid-bust as I'd thought), I hesitated. Do I really want to do it? I thought I'd look into … Continue reading Early Brassieres
Mimic of Modes 