Nitty Gritty

I spoke about what I'm doing at my internship in general terms before, but I wanted to go into it with some specific examples.

Lately, I've been going through a lot of medical supplies.  Three or four donations were made that consisted entirely of equipment, medications, etc. and fortunately just about everything in them was numbered.  Unfortunately:

1. One donation doesn't have a list of items, just a gift agreement form that says, "1988.26.1-80: mostly medical equipment".
2. One donation has some items labeled on the gift agreement, but with stretches of objects marked "unidentified medical tool".
3. There are many boxes that are just full of stuff and took quite a while to go through.  On Tuesday I managed to get through roughly two shelves, when my usual rate is a whole shelving unit.

I documented my process with one of the more tightly packed boxes to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with.

  The box after I unpacked a small section of it.

Everything that was in that section.  There's a lot!

I took everything out and began cataloguing and putting the larger items in first - the boxes and that bottle of asafetida in a clear case.  The little box had assorted glass ampules*, but the others contained what was written on the label.

All of the loose bottles, some boxes, and some narrow pill tubes.

And here it is, all packed up!  My goal isn't exactly to make it look neater, but to try to get everything into such a position that the objects (especially the small glass ones) won't shift and possibly be crushed.  When you have little 1cc ampules and heavy brass trephines right next to each other, that's an important consideration.

* Ampules (or ampuls, or ampoules) are sealed containers, in this case, of medication.  Medicine ampules tend to be single dosages in glass capsules; most of these came in boxes with little files, so that the narrow neck could be safely broken and the medicine syringed up.

Here's another set:

There's a thin space on the left that could be filled in with a bit of archival paper, but because the boxes and tins fit together well there really isn't that much movement.

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1911 Lingerie Dress Plans

Like everyone, I have a plethora of historical clothing I'd like to make in an ideal world where fabric is free and a seamstress does the tricky bits for me.  Yesterday, though, I set some concrete goals for myself for ... well, I'm calling the goal "Dress U 2013," but obviously I'd like to be done a bit before that.

Goal One: An early 1910s lingerie dress with silk slip.

I've been in love with the lingerie dress for a while, and with the 1910s as a whole.  Lingerie dresses by definition don't need expensive materials, which also suits my wallet.  The idea of a colored silk slip underneath came to me from my 1902 McCall's Magazine (which is early, but I plan to do more research to find out if the idea continued into the next decade):

The white swisses, with black embroidered dot and inlays of black lace, are particularly effective over linings of rose pink or delicate green, but the prevailing mania for black and white makes a white silk slip the best investment for any one who can not afford several.

- from What to Wear in Summer: Pretty Fashions for Hot Weather

I'm not sure what I'm going to use for a pattern.  I own several lingerie dresses, and one in particular seems like it might be a good choice:

I'd like to look through the extant lingerie dresses at the Chapman, when I'm on a break, and see if any of them would be more suitable to copy, but this one seems like a good choice.  It's simple, and with the tight skirt, high waistline, bloused bodice, and cut-in-one sleeves, it's perfectly emblematic of the style.  I also think it might be flattering for me (fingers crossed).

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The Lady and the Highwayman (1989)

For my first review, I'd like to go with a "favorite" of mine - The Lady and the Highwayman.  It's an adaptation of a Barbara Cartland novel that, surprisingly, stars Hugh Grant (not that surprising, thought, as a lot of established actors seem to have worked on one or another of these).




Plot: The film begins during the time of the Commonwealth, just before the Restoration. Lady Panthea Vyne is harassed by a Cromwellian tax collector into marrying him, but after the wedding they're waylaid by the notorious highwayman Silver Blade (aka Lucius Vyne, Panthea's cousin), who duels the tax collector and kills him, taking his ill-gotten gains to return to the poor.  Panthea goes back to her house and pretends it never happened.

Hugh Grant, buckling his swash

Years pass, the Restoration happens, and everyone is happy.  Panthea's aunt takes her to court to meet Charles II, but she also meets his mistress, Barbara Castlemaine (as they call Barbara Palmer here), and Panthea's cousin Rudolph, who are a pair of schemers.  Barbara is worried that Charles's interest in sweet, innocent Panthea - as well as Panthea's friendship with the oddly cheerful Catherine of Braganza - will lead to Panthea becoming the next royal mistress, so she does everything she can to get rid of the other woman.  Eventually, this culminates in Panthea being tried for the tax collector's murder when Charles is out hunting or something like that.  Silver Blade is also arrested as her accomplice - Lucius has remained undercover to help seek out Charles's enemies - and things look very bleak.  Until they are, of course, rescued, but it is all most angsty and dramatic until then.  The movie ends with a happy cousin-marriage.

Barbara, scheming

One of the things I love the most about it is the hamminess.  What I want from a villain is a willingness to shout lines like, "Then die - die with your puling, green-stick maid!"  Barbara, played by Emma Samms, is fantastically entertaining and even though she's pretty much nastiness incarnate, you kind of want her to win in the end.  The movie as a whole is quite dedicated to playing out its clichés with gusto and without apologizing for them. 

Costumes: Very surprisingly for a movie of this vintage and quality, the costumes are pretty great. 

What Panthea wears when she's just chilling at home. Nice, full shift sleeves, a deep front point, puffed sleeves, and overall a willingness to be a bit unattractive to modern sensibilities.  17th century stays don't give a very narrow waist, and the big sleeves aren't particularly flattering either, but they went there.

Barbara and Rudolph.  Rudolph's hat has a great big plume; Barbara's neckline (though a bit skewed) would hit at just the point of the shoulder rather than being completely off it, the way you often see it worn in period movies, which is a pet peeve of mine.  The point is to give a slope to the shoulders, not emphasize the corner!

Panthea has a fashionable Restoration-era face shape - round, almost a little squared at the jaw.  In general, they did a pretty good job with the hair.  Of course, sometimes they go pretty 1980s with it (see below), but for the most part they stick to curls at the sides of the face and hair combed straight back off the forehead or parted in the center.
 

Barbara in her stays, which have a pretty good shape, though a bit extreme.  Negligée dress was becoming a big deal at that time, so it was good to see some of that as well.

Hahaha, look at that hair.  Usually he wears a hat.  But his collar gets the look of needlelace, I think.

One of the few wrong notes was Panthea's maid's dress - black with white looks right to us for servant clothing, but at this time black was still expensive.  If she's a lady's maid, she ought to be dressed more like Panthea but a little toned-down.  I do like the vandycked (a 19th century term, I know) edging on her cap, though.

(Charles II.)

Terrible screenshot, but I was trying to show Rudolph's coat.   Shortish sleeves, loose fit.

Unironic Quality Score: Oh, probably 1/5.
Ironic Quality Score: THROUGH THE ROOF.  Watch this on a rainy day, when you're down, or with friends - it's an amazing experience.

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That Poll

The tallies:

Do some posts on best/worst costume dramas, or just review a handful - 73%

 

Portrait costume analyses like American Duchess - 53%

 

Cataloguing in the museum, more details about what you've looked at - 40%

Finish that series about the 1780s, doofus - 33%

 

Translating your symposium paper on "The Greek Myths of Fashion" into a series - 20%

 

Write about a specific time period/designer that I will name in the comments - 6%

 

 

All right!  I can see what you want.  I'll start off with a run of costume drama reviews.  I'll need a little time to take some screencaps, but I have Lots of Thoughts, so they might be worth the wait?

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Dress University

I had a very good time!  There were a few mishaps with my planned off-campus accommodations, but the classes themselves were great.  I got to meet people I'd only ever met online, see a lot of beautiful clothing, learn about some subjects I hadn't thought much about before, bought some amazing hairpins, and built up a good store of ambition.

But I know what you really want - pictures.  (I freely admit that I'm not sure who most people in these are because I'm terrible with names and faces, so if you see yourself, please tell me!)

On Sunday, I went to a class on Heian-Era Japanese clothes, and because I was in (comparatively) light, short clothing I was asked to model, which was fantastic as I was going the whole weekend in plain-clothes and was a bit lot jealous of everyone else.

Many thanks to the wonderful Costume Diva for taking the pictures of me!

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