Tag: 19th century clothing

Le retour au Baltimore, 1824-2024

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, making things

The Marquis came back (or his analog did, at least) last October 7, and we were there.

two men in 1820s clothing stand in front of Baltimore harbor. They are wearing tall hats and long coats. The man on the left stands astride a red velocipede.
Hell’s Dandies at Fort McHenry

Way back in January 2024, Mr. K and I were asked by the Museum of the American Revolution if we would be interested in joining them (and their tents) at Fort McHenry to celebrate the Lafayette Centennial in Baltimore at Fort McHenry. Of course, I said yes, figuring that 10 months or so was ample time to prepare. 

a blue denim coat with a very worn black velvet collar
The coat, posted on social media in February 2021

Reader, I began a dress in a workshop in May. I made another dress to wear and finished it the evening before the event. Why am I like this? (ADHD, I think.) Mr. K needed a new coat, so I patterned one for him to stitch from an older Burley & Trowbridge homespun. In 2021, someone (Genesee Country Village & Museum, maybe?) posted a fabulous image of a coat and waistcoat, which was the primary inspiration, along with coats including a blue broadcloth number at the DAR seen in the An Agreeable Tyrant exhibit. (Sadly, not in the online gallery.)

a purple cotton bodice back on a female mannequin, with a frothy chemisette with a pointy collar underneath
In progress: bodice back with piping in place

An Agreeable Tyrant also provided the inspiration for the dress I wore. I had almost too little sheer purple cotton fabric with a woven stripe, purchased at Lorraine Mill in Pawtucket a very long time ago. I meant to make an early 1800s gown, and had even started on the bodice around 2018 when life began to go very sideways and I stopped. I loved the fabric, though, and the deep color. 

I started on Sunday, September 22, and finished on Sunday, October 6. I have a full-time job and am in graduate school, so I’m not entirely sure how I managed to do schoolwork, work-work, and gown-work but I’m pretty certain the One Weird Trick was to do no housework. It’s embarrassing when the cat’s fluffy tail picks up thread and lint, but it is a reliable measure of how much vacuuming is needed. 

The bodice closes in back with a drawstring, which is much the easiest method for me– I did not have time to fuss with the fittings buttons require. The front panel is a gathered rectangle with a band at the top, piped on both the top and bottom edges. A waistband joins the bodice and skirt. The sleeves and skirt were based on shapes I drafted in the Burnley & Trowbridge workshop (I swear I’ll finish that dress). The sleeve has a piped petal cap, which was a pain to make but very gothic, to go with the points that decorate the bodice neck edge, and of which I have no images. Since I had the space at B&T to draft the skirts full-size, they actually work now– astonishing– and make a satisfying conical shape. I’ve struggled with skirts since 2014, and it’s nice to have that solved after a decade! 

gold colored geometric shapes on a white background show the layout of skirt pieces for a historical garment
1820s gown skirt layout

I’ve started using Illustrator to figure out layouts when I am short on fabric. In this case, I only had a little more than 3 yards of fabric, but managed to get what I needed out of what I had. Sure, bigger sleeves would’ve been nice, but I managed long sleeves and that seems like an accomplishment.

a man on a red velocipede followed by a boy on a foot bike
Riding School at Fort McHenry

Mr K. was able to debut his very apt and very dangerous velocipede, another project a decade in the making. We picked it up in February in Williamsburg. It is a handsome and impractical beast, tough to ride, but fun all the same. Charles Willson Peale and his sons had the first velocipede in the States, in Baltimore, so the Fort McHenry “1824” was truly appropriate. We entertained spectators, saw Mr. McC (who also took a turn about the site), and spent the day as very decorative appendages to the Museum’s tents. All in all, a day well spent. 

A Pelisse for Emma Smith

On By kittycalashIn 1830s, Clothing, making things

This was an interesting project that only needed to fit my small mannequin, which was a relief since the ultimate client was in Ohio.
It started with a conversation in the summer of 2022 about 1830s pelisses. I have an interest in the decade because we spend time at Old Sturbridge Village, and it’s a weird time period. I like the way that sleeves get smaller after the crash of 1837, and the various ways you can connect fashion and style to economics and politics. (See American Fancy, by Sumpter Priddy.)

Diana Sperling drew herself and her sisters– along with their brother Henry– walking to a neighbors for dinner in the 1810s

Pelisses were worn in the United States (and Europe) from the 1810s onward, though the bright scarlet wool cloak also persisted in use. The durability and water-resistance of the cloak, and the forgivingly loose fit, recommended them for continued use, Pelisses and cloaks were eventually superseded by sacques, dolmans, paletotes, and shawls, all of which accommodated the larger skirts and crinolines of the 1850s and 1860s. Many of these forms evolve but persist– think of the opera coat of the 1920s through 1960s, with its short sleeves, working over a range of silhouettes from shift dresses to tent dresses to bubble skirts.

The typical colors seem to have been green or brown, with some stripes appearing as well. For this garment, I selected a range of green-brown silks for the client to choose from and, eventually, we settled on Silk Baron’s Ardennes green silk taffeta and I ordered the yardage. The lining was made of Renaissance Fabric’s polished cotton-poly blend, as the closest material I could find to the polished or glazed cotton linings seen in period garments.

Lining and exterior, with fabrics for a wadded hood
I had help drafting shapes, of course.

The pattern was scaled down from my own Spencer pattern, and draped to fit the mannequin. The sleeve pattern was a bit of kit-bashing, working between the Past Patterns Lowell Mill Girl’s dress sleeve and my own 1820s sleeve. I chose to err on the side of less enormous, trying to walk a line between fashionable but not too outre. For Boston, I’d make enormous sleeves; for the shore of Lake Erie, northeast of Cleveland, I went a little smaller.

The bodice, sleeves, pelerine, collar, and skirt were all constructed with padded laters of woo batting between the silk exterior and the cotton lining. This was not a fun project to quilt, given the taught weave of both the silk and cotton layers, but the quilting and piping add snazzy details to the edges– and both were typical in pelisses, Spencers, and gowns of the period. 

The sleeve puff is achieved in part through tiny pleating inside, a technique copied from the 1820s original gown in my collection, which was handy resource to have on hand, if a bit of splurge.

If I were to make one of these for myself, I would look for a lighter-weight silk taffeta, and I would consider a striped fabric. Some pelisses are less shaped– that is, they’re made more like a bathrobe, without a separate bodice and skirt (see Jane Austen’s pelisse, patterned and recreated by Hilary Davidson), but I prefer the shaped silhouette.

A Dress for Red Hook

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

Portrait of a Couple in the Country, Josef Reinhard, 1809

We recently returned from an event months in making, as all the best ones are, with many people making new clothes and venturing into a new era: the early Federal period. Initially, I expected to portray a widow, but ended up portraying a milliner suing for damages resulting from a breach of promise of marriage. This afforded Drunk Tailor an opportunity to be caddish and impatient, and gave me the chance to be aggrieved, which I do enjoy.

Because I initially thought I was portraying a widow, I checked through my stash for appropriate fabrics, and, finding only yardage already designated for future projects (coming in March! yay!), I ordered black gauze from Renaissance Fabrics. The local fabric store failed me, and somehow I got fixated on transparency and weight: I wanted a particular drape that a heavier stuff could not provide.

I looked at fashion plates of mourning wear but came across an 1809 painting by Swiss painter Josef Reinhard and fell in love. Still, here I was on the train tracks to mourning attire when I was portraying a forsaken milliner. Fortunately, the event organizers provided documentation from local newspapers, and a plausible case could be made for being in mourning for my recently deceased father– adding another layer of poignancy to my abandonment and financial precarity.

The gown I made is my third run at an early 19th-century surplice front.  The pattern I scaled up from An Agreeable Tyrant was a reasonable place to start, though my shape has changed somewhat in the nearly three years since I first started on that. In the end, I found that the shape of the lining or base of the canezou was a better starting point. Using that back and the general shape and grainline of the front, I re-draped the front bodice pieces to my current size, adjusting the line over the bust and adding an underbust dart, based on darts seen in period Spencers.

Fronts
and back

It took about three muslins before I had a bodice that fitted well; then it was on to the sleeve. Thankfully, that only took two muslins to rework the curve of the sleeve head and the shape of the underarm, and adjust the grainline to correct the drape of the arm.

I like the contrast between the white chemisette and the black gown

The surplice or cross-front gown appears in many images; it’s a comfortable form, and uses relatively little fabric to achieve the effect. It would also be a good form for nursing mothers, and while that was not a consideration for me, I do like the way the neckline can show off a chemisette.

I wore this over a pink wool petticoat and the white bodiced petticoat/gown that I wore under the canezou; I’d prefer a black petticoat but the one I is made for 1790s gowns and required shortening. In the future, I’ll make a black or grey silk taffeta to wear under this gown. But first I’ll need new linen petticoats since two have disappeared.

The hem edge, as always for me, was little uneven despite measuring carefully multiple times, but a ruffle solved that and added weight to the hem, helping the skirts hang and move better. The trim is based on a drawing in the Nantucket Historical Association collection and uses a quantity of black silk ribbon (which I can buy wholesale thank goodness!).

I’m generally pleased with this pattern and the finish of the gown. The lessons I’ve taken from this experience are about packing lists (and not putting the box of bonnet behind the door where it is invisible) and accessories. Once you have a pattern that really works for you– a well-fitted bodice or waistcoat, coat, and trousers– what you need to round out your look are accessories. Those are the pieces that can expand your wardrobe, dress it up or down, and generate multiple looks from just a few pieces. If that sounds like capsule wardrobes or fashion magazine advice, well, just because you saw it in Mademoiselle or Glamour doesn’t mean it isn’t useful advice.

Portrait of Sarah Comstock Coffin and Children, ca. 1815. Nantucket Historical Association, 1917.0034.001

Black and White World

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Research1 Comment

Isn’t she grand? She’s on offer elsewhere; I came across her while narrwing down a date for a very different portrait.

She reminds me of a Tamara de Lempicka, if Tamara and Ammi Phillips had set up easels next to each other. From her forthright, slightly sulky gaze to the exuberant folds of her gown bodice to the hints of style in the details, we can learn a lot from this painting. There’s a kind of provincial Hepplewhite sideboard behind her, set with a colorful garniture; the copper hot water or tea urn places us in a parlor. The painting frame has a shell in the center of the bottom rail, the chair a turned knob on the back upright– we are on the edge of fancy, the moment when neoclassicism really gives way to exuberance (think canary yellow rose-painted china, big puffy sleeves on printed gowns, and fancy-painted chairs).

Below, an earlier entry in the black and white world. This lady was sold at auction recently. She’s earlier than our near-Tamara above, plainer in dress, sulkier. She is certainly more academic, and somewhat better painted, in addition to being set in a vaguely classic scene, in a very neoclassical chair, draped with a fine shawl.The artists is definitely showing off some skill in the “painting transparency” department.

The lady in black is firmly set in the neoclassical period. Restraint and moderation are watchwords– despite what you may think of that hair, which is recalling Greco-Roman precedents–much the way certain factions in the Revolutionary period were driven by piety and discipline. Politics and national ethos or mood are embedded visual culture then as now, and even in these portraits, simple as they seem.