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Victorian painting of a 17th century scene, with excellent seasonal vibes

Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema (English, 1852-1909)

At the Doorway

Le Bon Ton, Journal de modes. September 1854, v. 37, plate 7. Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library

Stripes, my beloved, I see you there.

Revue de la Mode, Gazette de la Famille, dimanche 26 septembre 1886, 15e Année, No. 769

Print maker: A. Chaillot; Printer: P. Faivre; Paris

Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands

Keep reading

Wake up babe a new open access review about Ice Age fashion just dropped.

Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress (Science Advances 28 June 2024)

This article uses the spread of bone awls and needles to trace the evolution of clothing from simple, minimally protective coverings to finely tailored, insulating garments across the geography of the Last Glacial Maximum. Not surprisingly, needle use is associated with cold climates and the need for warm, fitted clothing. But the wide variation in needle size, including very small ones for fine, delicate work, along with frequent discovery of shell and bone beads showing use wear consistent with rubbing against clothing, shows the evolution of clothing into dress. Bodily adornment transitioned to clothing to mark identity and status.

Fig. 4. Puncture marks consistent with leather hole punching on a bone fragment at Canyars, Catalonia, dated to 39,600 cal B.P. Scale bars, 1 cm. Photos: L. Doyon, F. d’Errico.

Fig. 5. Morphological variation in the size and shape of Late Pleistocene eyed needles. Scale bar, 1 cm. Modified from d’Errico et al.

Fig. 2. Nassarius kraussianu shell beads from Blombos Cave Still Bay layers, southern Africa, dated to approximately 73,000 to 70,000 years ago. Arrows indicate use-wear facets. Photos: F. d’Errico [modified after d’Errico et al.]

For those interested in Victorian menswear, be sure to check out The Gazette of Fashion and Cutting Room Companion. It was a 19th century periodical that is geared toward tailors and is focused almost exclusively on menswear. Every volume is stuffed full of patterns, and the articles talk about trends in cut, style, and color each season. It's a fantastic resource and almost no one knows about it.

I've included a link to one of them (1870), but there are multiple volumes available for free on Google Books.

Google Books

Gazette of fashion, and cutting-room companion [afterw.] Minister's gazette of fashion

Really says something about the dire state of offerings for men interested in sewing their own clothes that even searching things like "interesting men's clothing patterns" brings up articles with links to four or five whole websites that primarily offer admittedly nice but practically identical patterns for making button-ups and work pants and maybe a varsity/bomber jacket if you're lucky.

(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men's to women's patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)

Patternmakers as a trans man I am begging you. Give me a little more to work with here.

A New Crinoline and 1850s Petticoats

Finally getting around to posting about my new 1850s undies! I finished them last winter, but Life happened, so here I am, a year and a half later.

Anyway, I finished a new crinoline and basic cotton petticoat first. The crinoline was made by first making the lower section out of cotton muslin, and attaching twill tape at even intervals. I then made each bone individually, the casing made from twill tape, then the boning threaded through, and then the bone stitched closed at the needed circumference. I played around with the size of each bone before I stitched it to the tapes to get the overall shape that I wanted.

To go over it, I made my standard cotton petticoat with a single flounce.

Then I actually got around to reading period descriptions and suggestions for petticoats in fashion magazines of the time, and found that they frequently recommended petticoats made of grosgrain fabric, with three flounces from the knee to the hem. So, I searched the internet and finally found some grosgrain fabric, which I had to order from Greece. (Spoiler alert - grosgrain and faille are pretty much indistinguishable, which I wish I'd known before because faille is way easier to find.)

Anyway, the construction of the petticoat was not difficult, but the grosgrain fabric was a nightmare. It frayed at the slightest touch, exploding into a thousand tiny shards. My serger was garbage and not working, so I used a side cutter presser foot instead, which sort of acts as a serger. It definitely helped, but by the time I discovered said presser foot, I was already so over this project that I threw it in the naughty corner for months because I couldn't stand to work on it anymore. I finally dug it out a few months later and finished it up.

I have to say, it does give an enormous amount of floof, but I would never, ever recommend making one to anyone else. It was a nightmare from start to finish.

There's a more detailed writeup with more of my petticoat research and in-progress photos on my main blog, so please do check it out!

Day Dress

c.1855

England

This type of widely protruding skirt that appeared around the middle of the 19th century came to be known later under the name of the "crinoline style." As can be seen with this dress, large design motifs proved immensely effective on these voluminous skirts. The border pattern here is wood-block printed and repeats every 20.6 cm. Compared to small-scale designs, large patterns require a solid technique to avoid misalignment of the print colors. Considering that this mixed fabric of silk and wool is a material hard to print on, this dress with its bright and cheerful colors is a particularly fine example on how much cloth printing techniques had evolved.

The Kyoto Costume Institute

Hello, yes, it's me with three 1850s transformation gowns, a wrapper, and all the accessories for them, all needed just five months from now.

“How’s your WIP going?”

"Have you made any progress?”

“How close are you to being done?”

The stripes! Why are stripes always *so* good? ♥

Le Follet, 1855, No. 1971 : Chapeaux Mme Naudé (…), anonymous, after Anaïs Colin-Toudouze, 1855 (x)

Hello, Stripes, you have my attention. ♥

La Mode: revue du monde élégant. Troisième année. Juillet. 1831. Paris. Pl. 166. Robes de Mousseline blanche et mousseline à raies brochées, façon de Melle Palmire. Coiffures de M. Hypolite — Bijoux de Chauffert, Palais royal. Bibliothèque nationale de France

I never did update when this got finished last summer, did I?

Happy with how it turned out, even if it does take some serious hairpin architecture to construct a bun that'll hold the hat steady - it's a little heavier (and a lot more ready to blow around in the wind) than anticipated.

This hits so many of my niche interests, it's perfect. ♥

Bookbinding: A Stitch in Time

My mom has been hoping to get her hands on a hard copy of A Stitch in Time, which, as I'm sure most of you are aware, tends to be pricey if you can find it. (It's currently listed for ~$115 on eBay, and more expensive elsewhere.)

So, I decided to put my bookbinding skills to use and make her one for her birthday.

Notes on the design and construction:

The cover design was inspired by (or rather adapted from via considerable photoshopping) this book cover from 1901 that happened to cross my dashboard in a post with a bunch of other cool old book covers:

I created the Cardassian building silhouettes based on a screencap, and the DS9 silhouette is borrowed from the Niners logo. The orchid on the back cover emerging from the Obsidian Order logo is one I found in Cricut Design Space.

(Feel free to use these in your own projects, if you like.)

The bookcloth is by BOOKCRAFTSUPPLYCO on Etsy (dark green). The cover designs are HTV, Cricut Everyday Iron-On (black), Cricut Foil Iron-On (gold), and Vinyl Frog Metallic Foil (holographic silver). The Cardassian Union logos on the end pages were done using Cricut's foil transfer system (gold). The fonts on the cover are DS9 Title and DS9 Credits from st-minutiae.com.

by threadhandedjill

This is magnificent!

Holy shit, y’all have got to see this art deco dream of a quilt from Reddit:

My latest finished project, based off a couple of extant bodices and a fashion plate which all had this snazzy cross-over front feature.

I actually made the skirt a long time ago as a historybounding, everyday thing to wear. It has alternating panels of striped and solid black cotton, and has a scalloped hem. I love it and wear it often, and decided that I was going to make a matching bodice so I could wear it to costume events, too.

I draped the pattern myself, based off of a couple of extants. Each seam is boned with artificial whalebone and the seam allowances were tacked down by hand with a herringbone stitch. The peplum is lined with black cotton, but the rest is just lined with cheap plain white muslin to save on cost. The bodice closes up the center front with hooks and eyes, and then the wrap panels are folded over and closed at the side seams.

Brain gremlins about my weight are under the cut for those that don't want to read it.

I finished this outfit a while back, but I've been struggling with whether or not I wanted to post it. It's not the outfit, I think that it turned out fabulously. But I've been really unhappy about my weight, and it's been a fight to remind myself that my weight is not my worth. I keep hearing the negative things my mother would say whenever I would gain a pound or two or the "positive" things she'd say when I lost them (things like "oh, you have a chin again!" or "I can actually see your waist now.")

So I'm trying to ignore all that and remind myself how awesome this dress turned out, how hard I worked on it, and how proud I am of the construction of it.

La Mode nationale, no. 17, 25 avril 1896, Paris. Notre patron découpé (Grandeur naturelle). Corsage à pointe. Bibliothèque nationale de France

Détails et Explication du patron découpé:

Ce modèle forme pointe devant très court sur les hanches; des coques de même étoffe, doublèes de soie assortie, forment petite basque; les pinces sont ornées d'un galon brodé. (This model has a pointed front shape, very short on the hips; shells of the same fabric, lined with matching silk, form a small peplum; the clips are decorated with an embroidered braid.)

Ce patron se compose de six morceaux. (This pattern consists of six pieces.)

No. 1. — Le devant. (The front.)

No. 2. — Le premier côté; un cran indique le raccord au devant. (The first side; a notch indicates the connection at the front.)

No. 3. — Le deuxième côté; deux crans indiquent le raccord au premier côté. (The second side; two notches indicate the connection to the first side.)

No. 4. — Le jockey de la manche. (The jockey for the sleeve.)

No. 5. — Le dos, coupé long de façon à former une coque en repliant le bas à l'endroit indiqué par un cran de chaque côté. (The back, cut long so as to form a shell by folding the bottom at the place indicated by a notch on each side.)

No. 6. — La manche ballon, demi-longue; un trait à la roulette indique le dessous. (The balloon sleeve, half-length; a roulette line indicates the bottom.)

Métrage: 1m,50 tissu grande largeur; 0m,70 soie ou satin pour l'intérieur des coques.

Trying to chart out a border element from embroidery in a historical context

Accidentally created Godzilla instead

Some colors just make my heart happy. This gown is peak Gothic, dating from 1840-1850, potentially of German origin. If you like layer cake gowns with staying power, this is ideal.

Miles of rose pink taffeta silk, Chinese style embroidery, and those mirrored V shapes at the bodice top and bottom just make this perfect for a princess (or a princess at heart). The embroidery at the bottom of the bodice just kills me it's so beautiful and delicate. Monochrome can be so beautiful!

Image Credit: © Historic Deerfield, Inc.

bodice, waistcoat

c. 1615-1618

linen, silk, silver, silver-gilt, metal, hand-stitched

Glasgow Museums

Jacket

1590-1630

Great Britain

This simple unlined jacket represents an informal style of clothing worn by women in the early 17th century. Unlike more fitted waistcoats, this loose, unshaped jacket may have been worn during pregnancy. A repeating pattern of curving scrolls covers the linen from which spring sweet peas, oak leaves, acorns, columbine, lilies, pansies, borage, hawthorn, strawberries and honeysuckle embroidered in coloured silks, silver and silver-gilt threads. The embroidery stitches include chain, stem, satin, dot and double-plait stitch, as well as knots and couching of the metal threads. Sleeves and sides are embroidered together with an insertion stitch in two shades of green instead of a conventionally sewn seam. Although exquisitely worked, this jacket is crudely cut from a single layer of linen, indicating the work of a seamstress or embroiderer, someone without a tailor's training. It has no cuffs, collar or lining, and the sleeves are cut in one piece. The jacket was later altered to fit a thinner person. The sleeves were taken off, the armholes re-shaped, the sides cut down, and the sleeves set in again.

The Victoria & Albert Museum (Accession number: 919-1873)

ⓘ A sewing machine is a device that provides a several-fold increase of the speed at which you can make mistakes