Like Sew 18th Century, I’ve been enjoying preparing for the August 2nd event in Salem.
I’ve not ventured too much into Regency bonnets, or into straw, but I did flirt with a 1794 bonnet. Now I’ve got hats on the brain, and the time to fully indulge my whimsy (though it runs out Sunday).
From the fashion plates, one would almost say, Anything Goes. Of course it doesn’t, really, but you can get a sense of the exuberance of bonnet trimmings in the illustrations, and the lavish use of ribbons, bows, feathers and flowers.
Not all straw bonnets were lined– in fact, they often weren’t– but the lining protects the straw and the wearer’s face, and finishes this off in a way I like. Pleating in my condition was, ah, challenging, but I figure it was good for my brain to have the exercise. The lining in the brim is white taffeta, but I used white linen in the main crown or tip portion of the bonnet. Instead of bagging the lining, or trying to fit it, I mimicked what Mr B does in the hats he’s made for us. The gathered linen closes with a drawstring and required slightly less effort to fit into the hat.
The velvet ribbons came from Lunarain Designs on Etsy, the ties are taffeta ribbon from Taylor’s Etsy shop, and the straw bonnet form came from Regency Austentation. While the finish work takes time and concentration, I do enjoy both making up and trimming bonnets, and look forward to several more.
Ah! Quelle antiquité!!! Oh! Quelle folie que la nouveauté … Engraving, 1797. 1892,0714.755 British Museum
Regency, Federal, Early Republic: we use these terms to cover (roughly) the period from 1790-1820, though technically the Regency period would mean only 1811-1820, when George IV served as Prince Regent, ruling for his incapacitated father, George III. In the United States, “Regency Costuming” is a bit of misnomer if you’re copying early American gowns, but it does serve as a handy short-hand we all tend to understand.
Grossly, the principles of dress are rooted in neo-classicism and republicanism rising from the American and French Revolutions. Specifically, we see a turning away from the heavily-boned, panniered, and formal gown styles to the looser, short-stayed, flowing, simpler gowns. The transition is summed up for me in this satirical print.
So, you’re no longer side-to-side wide, baby: you gotta have back.
How do you get back? There are a couple of perfectly authentic tricks that do not require you to stuff a cat into the back of your dress, though you can do that if you want. The combination I have found to work is two-part: a small, crescent-shaped pad, and the method of pleating. How you deploy the pad and the pleats will give you the silhouette you desire.
First, though: which silhouette? In really the 1790s, the silhouette is rounder than you might think. It really is a round gown.
Ann Frankland Lewis, 1793. LACMA
The Frail Sisters, 1794
To get that look, I use a small rump pad, bustle pad, or bum roll (call it what you like), which is stitched to the inside of my petticoat.
Pad from the inside
Pad from the outside
That’s the white IKEA curtain petticoat I made during the extended snow days of last year, and which I have worn with the red curtain-along open robe and under the petticoat and open robe for What Cheer Day. The pad is the same natural light-weight linen I use for a many gown linings, filled with bamboo stuffing. If I’d had wool on hand in the small hours of the morning I made this pad, I would have used it, but all I had was bamboo in the rush to finish up and have something to wear for a photo shoot.
The other key factors are pleating styles and fabric weight. Pleats can add lift, but in general, the lighter the fabric, the more lift a small pad will give you.
Double and triple box pleats, exterior view
Double and triple box pleats, interior view
I’m particularly fond of the pleats used for the gown shown on page 75 of Nancy Bradfield’s Costume in Detail. I’ve used this as a guide several times, and I am very pleased with the results. They do vary, of course, depending on fabric weight, fibre, and length. Stiffer cottons, like the Waverly Felicity of the curtain-along gown, will make a round shape; tropical weight wool does fairly well, also, but the most amazing 1790s rendition I have achieved to date is the light-weight India print cotton short gown.
On Cassandra
On me
Now that’s 1790s back. The bustle-like shape surprised (OK, shocked) me, but on the whole, I think I’m pleased. So there you are: pad, petticoat and pleats: that’s how you get back.
As promised, my interpretation of the ribbed bonnet in the 1789 engraving. There are a few problems with this beyond the model. (Which is not to say that I don’t like this bonnet– I do!)
I used the Kannik’s Korner bonnet pattern (view F, I think) as the basis for this because I already had a brim, lining, and caul cut and in a drawer. Given my current medicated state, using something pre-cut seemed advisable. That means I didn’t play with the brim to create the line of the Williamsburg bonnet, or the curve of the brim in the “Fortune Teller” engraving.
Detail, The Marquis of Grandby
Is this style acceptable for the period I typically interpret (1775-1783)? Well… there are other examples of the lampshade-style bonnet, as in the Edward Penny painting of the Marquis of Granby. This painting is dated “after 1765” so there’s some room for interpretation there…too much room. But if that’s 1765-1770, and the “Fortune Teller” is 1789, I think we have comfortably covered the 1775-1783 time frame, even if it is a bit like a queen-sized blanket on a twin bed.
Front view: more lamp-shade like.
As you can see, the bonnet does have some lamp-shade-like tendencies on my head, which I consider a benefit. I like the way the ribs are visible, even if I remain unconvinced by the caning. I think it’s a little too wide, and lacks resiliency, though to be honest, I have only felt baleen at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, where there is a large sample on the second floor.
To compensate for the disappointing cane in the brim, I slipped a piece of millinery wire into the pocket underneath the cane. The layers in the brim are:
black taffeta
horsehair canvas
linen buckram
yellow taffeta
The channels are all hand-sewn, and then the cane was slipped in. I stitched the black taffeta caul to the first three layers, and then lapped the yellow taffeta over the raw edges and stitched it down to finish the brim/caul seam.
No, I didn’t take any in-process pictures…probably because this took considerable snake-eyed concentration last weekend.
Usually, I line the cauls of my bonnets, but through shear laziness or distraction, I opted not to this time, and I think I’ll leave it this way for a while. You will also note that I have not trimmed this: I have some black silk ribbon coming, and I may try that. I don’t have enough black taffeta left to cut self-fabric ties, and there do seem to be some plain examples. A plainer, lamp-shade-like bonnet may be just the ticket for Bridget.
What would I do differently? Next time I would definitely play with the brim shape using a paper template. I’d like a lower, curvier, brim. Once I had the shape worked out in paper, I would use that as a template to cut the taffeta and horsehair or light buckram layers.
The Edenton Tea Party
I’d also try zip ties. I know: not period correct! But short of risking federal prosecution resulting from a trip to New Bedford with some shears, I’m not sure that anything other than plastic will have the resiliency and spring that baleen has, and that made these bonnets so special. I thought of them while making this bonnet, but I think Mr S used them all at work in the past two months. A Facebook friend has been thinking of zip ties, though, and has a hankering for one of these bonnets. I can’t say that I blame her– and honestly, I think I might join her.
The challenges look interesting, and I particularly like the seasonal fruit/vegetable one. This seems like a wonderful chance to cook historical recipes using seasonal, local ingredients, and I do like to remind people that historical eating is grounded in seasonal, local, eating. Plus pounds of raisins and sugar and gallons of alcohol.
Your local historical archive (or whichever one contains the works relevant to your interests) can be a great place to get started assembling documentation on local eating. Receipts for foodstuffs can be mixed into other accounts (cotton for your daughter, a parasol, a pair of shoes for your wife, 5/8 yard pink silk satin self) but you can still quantify tea, sugar, spices, Madeira, and flours. I find fresh produce somewhat harder to track–you won’t count what is growing behind your house– but fear not, New Englanders! Some of that hard work has been done for you.
A bill of fare for August
J.L. Bell of the fantastic Boston 1775 blog wrote the book-length historic resource study General George Washington’s Headquarters and Home—Cambridge, Massachusetts, which I read before we went up to the “Washington Takes Command” event last July. (That sentence just seemed crazy, even to me…yes, I read 650 pages plus the event program to prepare for a 6-hour event…)
The report can be downloaded as a PDF, and if you’re looking for food, where you want to go is Chapter 6, Daily Life at Washington’s Headquarters (page 173 and following). On pages 195-197 the Steward’s Purchases are listed, sorted by Fruits, Vegetables and Grain, Spices and Flavorings, etc.
While Washington was maintaining (or causing to have maintained for him) a Genteel Household, the list of purchases is helpful in documenting the variety and types of foods available in Cambridge. I suspect that similar kinds of documentation exist in the historic resource reports or room use studies for places like Gunston Hall.
I cannot manage to keep up with the Historical Sew Fortnightly right now– things went pear-shaped in December— but we have to eat, historically or otherwise!
Kirsten Hammerstrom 
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