Tag: 18th century clothing

Sacque it to Me

On By kittycalashIn A Silk Sacque8 Comments

Every now and then, by which I mean quite regularly, I lose my mind and agree to participate in something that I know little about (tallow candles? hadn’t dipped a candle in decades), haven’t really got time for (Saratoga coats, though I managed one in a week), or feel woefully unprepared for (my life in general). This is either madness or a form of life-long learning.

When the lovely Mrs B proposed the group Sacque-a-palooza, I said, “Sure! What fun!” and meant it, too. (We nearly went to an 18th century party last year, but it was snowed out. We would have had to wear our tenant farmers’ clothes, and we would have been embarrassed.) A sacque with a venue? What’s not to like? (For sacques-piration, which is different from what you do while dancing in a fancy silk gown, I’ve started a Pinterest Board.)

Brown Silk cross-bar sacque, 1760s. LACMA
Really, how lucky was this find? And I got 10% off!

What was not to like at first was the yardage requirement: 10+ yards, and I really can’t skimp because of my height. I looked and did not find enough silk (though that didn’t stop me from picking up 7 yards of lovely pinky-lavender taffeta, because you never know when you’ll need to become a Ralph Earl painting). But, I got an afternoon when I could leave work early, and Sew 18th Century and I headed up to Boston to hit the fabric store before descending upon Mr and Mrs B. We did quite well and I like to think we were rawther restrained, considering the table of tropical weight wools at $2.99/yard…thank goodness there wasn’t enough of a grey cross-bar to make a gown for me! Despite my initial dithering, Sew 18th Century talked me into a cross-bar silk taffeta after we confirmed a very similar extant example.

Mrs B is a patient teacher, and helped guide us through the beginning construction steps. This was fortunate for me, because I’m not sure I was qualified to  open an envelope last night, let alone pleat silk. Making a gown under tutelage is a far different and far better experience than wrangling fabric yourself on the back of a recalcitrant and unyielding dress form.

Getting the party started: find your center.
Get the party started: find your center. (Thank you, Mrs S!)

This morning, though I am a trifle bleary-eyed since the tsunami of What Cheer Day finally hit me on Thursday, I am in proud possession of a back lining and a pinned back ready to have the pleats sewn to the lining. That is quite good for a few hours work among congenial company.

I also learned a new mantra, which will be good for me, and a change from wielding the center-finding ruler: Done is better than perfect.

Chemisettes

On By kittycalashIn Events, making things, Museums, Research1 Comment
The Shooting Star: Snowy in his “best bib and tucker.”

Chemisette or tucker? By the time The Shooting Star was published in 1941-42, “bib and tucker” had wandered away from their original meanings. Tuckers were worn under women’s and girl’s bodices, taking on the role of neck handerchiefs or fichus, and what some people like to call “modesty pieces,” though the phrase always makes me think of the front panel of desks.

Janet Arnold includes chemisettes in Patterns of Fashion I, and you can buy a very nice one indeed from Cassidy at her Etsy store. (Reviewed here, and modeled, too!) But can you have one in Rhode Island in 1800? That is, of course, the question.

Hannah Weaver Peckham, RIHS 1958.3.2
Hannah Weaver Peckham, RIHS 1953.8.2

Turns out you probably can. Scrolling through the miniatures gallery, there was Hannah Weaver Peckham in her best tucker, and Miss Rhodes, while later, is also sports a chemisette or tucker. (Mrs Peckham looks a bit cranky, doesn’t she? Perhaps her busk is poking her.)

What you’d call it remains an open question.

The 1933 Oxford dictionary we have in the office defines “tucker” as “A piece of lace or the like, worn by women within or around the top of the bodice of the 17-18th C.”

Phoebe Smith Rhodes, RIHS 1918.3.6
Phoebe Smith Rhodes, RIHS 1918.3.6

The same dictionary tells me “chemisette” is 1807, from the French, diminutive of chemise. “1. A bodice, more or less like the upper part of a chemise. 2. An article, usually of lace or muslin, made to fill in the open front of a woman’s dress 1844.”

While I think that one could, in Rhode Island in 1800, wear a garment that filled in the upper part of a bodice, I’m not sure what one wold call that garment. The simplest thing to do is to wear a white kerchief  like Phoebe Smith Rhodes. Have I ever settled for the simplest thing? Not if I can help it.