Tag: 1812

Dating Mr Darcy…

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Museums, Research7 Comments
1996.66.4, RIHS Museum Collection
1996.66.4, RIHS Museum Collection

Or at least his coats.

I don’t know about you, but as the summer weather warms up, I like to think wool. I’ve got menswear to sew and desires beyond my knowledge, skills and abilities. Making a wool coat for an event in August seems like a patentable Bad Idea, so it’s a good thing that I have a nice piece of Italian linen-cotton denim-like fabric that I’ve set aside to make a summer-suitable coat for Mr S.

There is a Rhode Island coat, in a Rhode Island collection, of which I am particularly fond. I’ve had this coat in mind for some time now, and have inflicted it upon have shared it with experts several times.  It has a lot to recommend it: a soil mark on the collar, extensive damage and repairs to the left sleeve, fading and wear on the back, fragments of botanical material in the pocket lint, and the nicest linen fabric I’ve ever felt.

This is the coat I wanted to make for Mr S, but then I started thinking about that waist seam, which eliminates this from the style competition for 1812. Rats! But, OK, no reason that we can’t use this as inspiration and make a coat using the fabric but not the waist seam.

1956.9.3, RIHS Museum Collection
1956.9.3, RIHS Museum Collection

So I looked at another coat that just happened to be handy (I know, I am very lucky, and that’s part of why I’m sharing this with you). At first glance, I thought I was good. And by glance, I mean extended looking. But look again: there is a waist seam, it’s just harder to see. So much for the iPhone and lousy light, right? (I noticed the seam today, in even less light, so go figure.) This coat is made of a single twill off white wool can easily be mistaken for plain weave and that is rather light. Very summery, in a way.

Coat style found? Maybe. But I was wondering about the sleeves. I spend a great deal of time looking at sleeves and backs of much earlier coats, so I’m accustomed to a smooth sleeve head. That’s not what you’ll find on this garment, though. This one has gathers, and I thought that was pretty exciting. My closest expert probably had a weird twinge at that moment that he will soon learn to associate with an incoming email from me…

Sleeves, 1956.9.3 RIHS Museum Collection
Sleeves, 1956.9.3 RIHS Museum Collection

This is a nice detail, but one I’m not familiar with. The fashion plates on Serendipitous Stitchery’s post do show increasingly full sleeves in the early years of the 19th century, but that detail didn’t fully register with me until I looked at this coat and processed what Mr C had told me about sleeves and shoulders. Seeing an extant example always makes principles more real.

So what next? At work, I’ve started updating the catalog records for these coats, and they’ll go live early next month. Every time we learn something new, we try to update and correct records so that everyone can benefit. That’s the easy part.

The hard part is reconciling style details for Mr S’s coat. In comparing these examples with fashion plates, I think it’s clear that they are both later than 1812 (waist seam) and nodding to but perhaps not fully embracing high style (see the gathers on the white coat, but the blue coat has only one gathered sleeve, which I attribute to maker error). Plausible dates for both might be 1818-1826, bearing in mind that these will be interpretations of styles, the way Old Navy knocks off adapts its sibling Banana Republic’s styles.

I may be back at that fabulous checked linen coat at the Met, with inspiration drawn from Providence’s plainest blue coat. The process always seems a compromise, in part because I do not think Mr S wants a checked coat, and in part because I’d like to use fabric I already have. Still, there is yet another coat to think about…but tomorrow is another day.

Frivolous Friday: Just a Pretty Bonnet

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Living History, making things, Reenacting2 Comments

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.

More than Just a Pretty Hat

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History, Living History2 Comments

While pretty hats were pretty important parts of the milliner’s trade, many more things were sold in a millinery shop.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Margaret Hunter shop is probably the best-known living history milliner’s shop, and they provide a nice definition and explanation of the trade. But that’s never enough: what’s the primary source information for New England milliners?

While there is documentation of a Rhode Island milliner in the 1830s, and even a thesis on her work, Sew 18th Century and I are working on an earlier shop. I started with Rhode Island newspaper advertisements, because I like the sound of “lately arrived from Providence,” and because I understand that context.

The Rhode-Island American, December 25, 1810. III:20, p. 1
The Rhode-Island American, December 25, 1810. III(20), p. 1

Here is Mrs. Sands, just returned from New York to Newport and vicinity, with a long list of things for sale, “selected from the latest European importations, an elegant assortment of the most fashionable MILLINERY.. viz,:–” (you have the love the punctuation, which is like the Chicago Manual of Style on New Republic crack)

What is she selling? In addition to what we think of as traditional millinery, the “variety of ladies’ Caps and Turbans, Straw, silk and velvet Hats and Bonnets; Straw Trimmings of various kinds,” listed at the bottom of the ad, Mrs. Sands carries:

  • Lace Shawls
  • Caps, Handkerchiefs and Whisks;
  • Infants’ Lace Caps
  • Plain and figured mull mull and jaconet
  • –Muslins, of a superior quality;
  • Handkerchiefs and Habit Shirts,
  • India and British book Muslins,
  • Plain and figured Lenos,
  • Long black, white and coloured Beaver and Kid Gloves;
  • Silk and cotton lace Armlets,
  • A large assortment of Ribbons,
  • Artificial Flowers, Featehrs and silver Wreaths
  • Tortoise Shell Combs of Various sizes;
  • Merino long Shawls
  • Worsted Tippets
  • Gentlemen’s Neck Pads

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff, and many different kinds of things, though all broadly in the ‘accessories’ or supplies range. I am delighted to see Habit Shirt on the list, as I buy my chemisettes, and I am intrigued by the range of handkerchiefs and by the Tortoise Shell combs, in part because I did not buy an assortment of them at a shop in western Rhode Island a month ago (kicks self).

Newport Mercury, December 11, 1811. L:2593, p.1
Newport Mercury, December 11, 1811. L(2593), p.1

In the December 21, 1811 Newport Mercury, Mrs Sands again advertised her goods lately arrived from New York. This is a less exhaustive, but no less interesting, list. “Ladies elegant green velvet mantles, with and without spencers” is particularly intriguing for a Spencer fan, and not particularly clear to me.

November 21, 1812. Essex Register
November 21, 1812. Essex Register

In Salem, which is where we will be in August, Elizabeth Pierce advertises her “Fashionable Goods” for sale. She, too, has a long list of things she will sell, from Canton crapes to imitation shawls, hosiery, lace sleeves and armlets, one box of English flowers, and American Straw bonnets.

I suspect that just as retailers do today, milliners of the late 18th and early 19h century probably had an assortment of things designed to bring buyers in to shop (new bonnet styles), and small items to tempt them into impulse purchases (English flowers). You can’t buy a new bonnet every week, but you can refresh an old one.