I did threaten to write about the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice, and since I'm in a writing mood without a topic I decided to make good. Regency adaptations tend to go for an overall accurate look, interpreting age and income within the confines of realistic silhouettes and colors, and so they avoid the scrutiny and … Continue reading Pride and Prejudice 1995: The Little Things
Tag: 19th century
Day Dress (1865-1868)
Day dress, 1865-1868; CHM 1990.56.1 (pattern available at link) It's been a little while since I've shown a patterned garment from the Chapman, so I thought I would give you another. This one also goes very well with my previous post From Hoop to Bustle, as it comes from the years when women wore the … Continue reading Day Dress (1865-1868)
From Hoop to Bustle: 1856-1875 (HSM #1)
(For a while I intended to join in on the Historical Sew Monthly 2015, using it to put together an outfit for a Halloween wedding, but I realized that the themes were not lining up exactly with what I needed to sew. Before I thought I might participate properly in '15, I came up with … Continue reading From Hoop to Bustle: 1856-1875 (HSM #1)
Waistcoats: 19th and 20th Century
Apart from certain stylistic keys, I've always had a harder time dating men's clothing. It's just not as interesting to me, so I haven't taken the time to really study dated extant pieces and images and improve my skills. But lately I've come across more undated waistcoats while cataloguing - it's become something that I … Continue reading Waistcoats: 19th and 20th Century
Fashion History Mythbusters: The Cage Crinoline or Hoop Skirt
As Julia Thomas points out in Pictorial Victorians, the satirical cartoons and anecdotes in Punch heavily colored contemporary (and modern) impressions of the fashions of the 1850s and 1860s. As a result, the wide skirts seem like fantastical costumes that played havoc with ordinary life and were impossible to move around in. And so the myths … Continue reading Fashion History Mythbusters: The Cage Crinoline or Hoop Skirt
Mimic of Modes 