Frivolous Friday: Festive but Frigid

On July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 By kittycalashIn 1830s, Clothing, Events, Frivolous Friday1 Comment

Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458 — Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830.
William Sidney Mount MFA Boston 48.458

I don’t know about your weather, but we’re in full summer in New England, sultry and humid, with the occasional thunderstorm and power outage to enliven the evening. A sleigh ride sounds like fun today– and I know we all just finished complaining about the snow of February– but a brisk ride followed by a dance would certainly round out this week.

1833 approaches faster than expected, so it’s time to pick that back up and get serious. Not just a gown but petticoats and, ideally, a new shift should be made. This may be the project that breaks my resolve and finds the Bernina back on my table for cording a petticoat.

Detail, Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride, 1830. William Sidney Mount. MFA Boston 48.458

This image helps define the look of the early 1830s: not nearly as exaggerated as the fashion plates, these dresses and coats seem to fall into a progression from the 1820s– as you’d expect this early in the decade.

The gentleman at the back, in the drab colored suit, sports an interesting pair of trousers. I don’t think I know anyone ready to bust out the cossacks, but Mr Drab may be sporting a slightly modified pair. The collars and lapels show a shawl-shape that seems new, and modified from the more serpentine form seen in fashion plates– or else not yet as developed. There’s a range of headwear, too: tall hats on the left, a soft cap on the right. The Ladies’ Workbook has a pattern for one of those caps. Wonder how hard they are to make?

In the detail, we can also see the women’s hairstyles, less exaggerated than the fashion plates with their high top knots, and within the realm of possibility for those of us not practiced in historical hairstyle recreation.

So much has carried into this decade: colored neck wear, ruffles or chemisettes under women’s gowns, men’s hair brushed forward. As always, it’s the details that count. Tall shirt collars, rounded lapels, ladies’ sashes, the shape of sleeves. This should be a fun decade to represent.

Frivolous Friday: “Sport Your Little Spencers”

On June 5, 2015June 5, 2015 By kittycalashIn Frivolous Friday, Museums, Research

Spencers. hand-colored etching published by S W Fores, 1796. British Museum, 1851,0901.782

Spencers were clearly the rage for well over a decade, turning up in satirical prints from at least 1796 (We’ll get to that satire soon). I was wrong when I questioned the Maine catalog record that called a man’s short coat a Spencer: there were Spencers for men.

Here, everyone is wearing a Spencer down to the monkey and the dogs. What I find particularly interesting is that the short Spencer jacket is worn over the men’s coats– this is an entirely new concept to me. Yet, here it is again, in the “Pupils of Nature” print.

Pupils of Nature.hand-colored etching published by S W Fores after Maria Caroline Temple, 1798. British Museum, 1867,0713.409

Were Spencers were the 18th and early 19th century equivalent of Members Only or Barracuta jackets? (You will know a red Barracuta–even if you think you don’t.) Perhaps. They do seem to be a splashy unisex fad in the late 1790s that gives way to women’s wear, but that’s a thesis in need of more research than Frivolous Friday demands or permits.

Frivolous Friday: Silken Cone of Shame

On May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Frivolous Friday, Research, Snark3 Comments

La famille Anglaise à Paris.Plate 11 to 'London und Paris', x, 1802 [1803]. Explanatory text, pp. 90-5. Copy of No. 11 in 'Le Suprême Bon Ton' series, see BMSat 9957. An English John Bull stands stolidly full face with clasped hands, a grown daughter on his right arm, his wife on his left arm. With them are two tiny little girls and a grown-up son, also stolid. A Frenchman and a lady attitudinize elegantly on the left. 1802 Hand-coloured etching. British Museum 1856,0712.605 — La famille Anglaise à Paris.Plate 11 to ‘London und Paris’, x, 1802 [1803]. Explanatory text, pp. 90-5. Copy of No. 11 in ‘Le Suprême Bon Ton’ series, see BMSat 9957. An English John Bull stands stolidly full face with clasped hands, a grown daughter on his right arm, his wife on his left arm. With them are two tiny little girls and a grown-up son, also stolid. A Frenchman and a lady attitudinize elegantly on the left. 1802 Hand-coloured etching. British Museum 1856,0712.605

Mr JS and I have amused ourselves of late not just with thimble chatter, but with this satirical print of the English family in Paris.

I’m not nearly as funny as Mr JS, who pointed out that the bonneted girl on the far right is “I literally can’t even right now.” I think of her as Lisa Simpson, 1803. That’s the voice I hear reading the line texted to me: “I just want to pull this chemise dress over my head and die. Could someone with yellow fever cough on me?”

The father is Homeresque in his proportions, and nearly as befuddled. The artist is clearly mocking this poor family, contrasted with the graceful Parisians at left, but only the two youngest are aware, hiding in their cones of shame.

That deep coal-scuttle-like bonnet is mocked in other engravings; it is probably closer to the actual form of Julia Bowen’s cold scoop of 1799 than my approximation this fall. Julia would surely have known the shaming purposes of those grandiose and over-sized calashes: “Go sit in your calash and think about what you’ve done!” Mr JS quipped.

Appropriately enough, the silk I ordered to make my own calash of shame has arrived at the post office. Dark green taffeta envy lined with the bright magenta of embarrassment: clothes are so emotional.

Frivolous Friday: A Feather Kerfluffle

On May 22, 2015May 22, 2015 By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, Fail, Frivolous Friday, History, Living History, Reenacting, Snark3 Comments

Miss Caroline Vernon by François-Xavier Vispré (c.1730 – London 1790). pastel on paper. ©National Trust Images/John Hammond.

I troll the interwebs in the fishing and not the under-the-bridge sense: there’s a lot to read out there. Still, I’ve kept one eye on the feather-and-flower kerfluffle that erupted in certain circles this week, but have been much more interested in documentation of one kind and another.

Miss Vernon is really my favorite image of feathers on hats, and I wish I could say that a) I have replicated this fabulous creation or b) that I have seen such a thing, but alas! I have not.

Still, scouring sundry repositories for tayloring manuals (more on that another time), I found this delightful broadside. We can’t use 1782 to document 1780, and no means of using any of these items is mentioned or implied. Still, there they are, those inflammatory terms: Feathers, Flowers.