Tag: 1812

Bonnet Remodel

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things, Reenacting


I had a bonnet I made in 2014 (I think) that had been languishing in a box for years. I liked it– the soft tip was unusual, and the vintage ribbon and pink paper roses from the V&A went well with the dull grey– but I didn’t wear it. Sunday morning, I woke up resolved to remake the bonnet into something I will wear.

An upcoming weekend event in Dutchess County has me trawling through the fashion plates again, along with research helpfully sent along by the event organizers. A particular plate has stuck with me for some time, and finally I had the skill set necessary to tackle the thing. It takes making and looking and failing and remaking to figure out these things.

Step one was to take apart the bonnet-as-was. Satisfying work, really, not as unnerving as I feared it might be. And then? Paper patterns to figure out the sizes of the ridge and crest pieces.

I’d already committed myself to the silver-grey taffeta– slightly slubby, so second-chop, I’d already made muff cover, and had just enough left for a bonnet. The silver-grey seemed well-suited to a helmet-inspired style, and came close to the deep grey of the gros de Naples of the plate.

For mull, I used organic cotton quilt batting. It’s a little thick, but I pull my stitches tight and don’t want the buckram or pasteboard to show too much. The old brim piece served as a pattern for new, though I did have to use a different color for the brim lining.

The ridge was cut from homemade buckram (gum arabic on coarse linen from Burnley and Trowbridge). I used heavy cotton organdy to interline the crest. I know there is a way to get the ruffle more even, but my brain hasn’t produced it yet. Cartridge pleats and starch come to mind, along with goffering irons, as places to start. For now, this represents a Hudson River Valley milliner’s interpretation of the latest fashions.

The crown is taken from the 1770s bonnet I made, to take advantage of the way that crown slopes from a brim shaped like this one. If I were to make another one of these, I might switch up the order of assembly, and I might make the ridge piece of interfaced taffeta instead of taffeta-covered wired buckram.

The finished bonnet reused the same ties as the original bonnet, with a similar Petersham or grosgrain ribbon band. With my 2014 pelisse and a new muff, the only new accessory I’d like to make (or can remember wanting to make) is another, slightly larger, reticule to complete the ensemble.

Flipping a Lid

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things

In a continuing effort to simultaneously destroy my hands and make all the bonnets, I set out recently to recreate a bonnet in the Met’s collection.

Silk Bonnet, British, ca. 1815. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Designated Purchase Fund, 1983 2009.300.1613

It’s a curious thing, isn’t it, with that flipped-up brim? It looks more 1915 than 1815. But a little looking turned up this fashion plate:

Items 2 and 6, while not of silk, show the turned-up brim seen in this example. (To be fair, the original black and white photo suggests some confusion about the bonnet’s orientation.)

My version is admittedly imperfect, but a home-made interpretation that gets as close as I can (for now). I started with a lightweight buckram frame, to which I stitched slim round caning.

The brim is covered in two layers of the copper silk, and edged on the bottom side with the contrasting silk trim. the crown, or caul, is a simple tube gathered to a silk-covered buckram circle. In the absence of matching (or even sort-of-close) ribbon, my choices are to trim what’s left of the fabric and piece it together…. or start an online-ribbon hunt. At least the extant example has ribbon that’s close but not a match, giving me some leeway if I decide to save my hands for other projects and click instead of stitch.

Replication and Responsibility

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History, making things, Museums, Reenacting, Research8 Comments
Detail, the John Miner Coat, Stonington Historical Society, 2009.120.001
Detail, the John Miner Coat, Stonington Historical Society, 2009.120.001

If I examine and exactly replicate a coat for personal use, what do I owe the museum that owns that coat– anything? I think I owe the museum any information I can share that will improve their records and help build a research file for the future.* I also think I owe them copies of the images I may take, and with digital images, that’s now incredibly easy.

But if I replicate this coat (shoulder intact) for Mr S or the Young Mr, should I give the coat to the Stonington Historical Society when we are done with it? SHS thinks I probably should, but as someone who manages collections, how many replicas do I want, and what standards do I use to judge them?

I think the best course of action is for museums to make patterns of popular or often-requested garments available for purchase, so that anyone who wants to make a replica has all the data they need. Short of that– and funds are often short for that– catalog records with as many measurements and as complete a description as possible will allow dedicated tailors and stitchers to get as close as possible to original garments.

True replicas involve recreating fabrics and using period techniques, and matching a garment measurement to measurement– and in the case of the Miner coat, there is no way to replicate its history. And the amount of work and expertise that would go into a true replica of any historic garment seems enormous– it would constitute a large donation to the museum, even if the garment had been worn.

*For those of you reading the caption on the Miner coat, yes, it needs work, and yes, SHS knows there are problems with that description. I promised to help them with their catalog record.

A Trip to Stonington

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History, Museums, Reenacting1 Comment
The view from Stonington Point

On Tuesday, I drove down to Stonington, CT to visit the Stonington Historical Society’s Lighthouse Museum and look at a coat. Stonington was beautiful as ever, smelling of the ocean and money, and the little Lighthouse Museum was nicely done.

The coat did not disappoint.

It is a truly amazing artifact, having survived despite pretty incredible events. The donor wrote a letter about the coat when he gave it to the SHS in 1914:
“I have heard my father say due to the haste and excitement of the volunteers they failed to properly cool their gun before pouring into its muzzle the powder, which due to the excessive heat of the gun caused the powder to explode prematurely, as you may see by reference to the coat—burned and torn upon the neck and shoulder.” (Coat and letter, Stonington Historical Society, 2009.120.001).

Stonington, CT

As beautiful as the town of Stonington may be, and as much money as there may be on the Connecticut coast, the SHS has a small budget and must use its funds wisely. We had an interesting conversation about the reenactors and museum collections, and what responsibility historical costumers have to the collections that hold clothes they replicate.