A Question for the Living Historians and Re-enactors

You probably all know by now that I love to do research and write (but mostly do research), and lately I've been working on turning that blog post, Fashion vs. Feminism, into an article, with citations and five times as much text and things. You probably also know that I haven't made very many ensembles, and that I haven't experientially explored many different eras (by which I mean my only full outfits that I've worn have been from the eighteenth century).  So I need a little bit of help.

When it comes to the cage crinoline/hoop-skirt, there is only so much satires, fashion plates, and photographs can tell me.  There are a lot of accounts out there of the regular use of corsetry, but I don't find many regarding skirt supports.  I'm hoping that some of you ladies can answer a few questions:

- Did figuring out how to sit down take a lot of practice, and does it take you much effort to control the hoop when you do?

- Do you find that you have much trouble with it in the wind, or with unexpected movements in general?  When wearing it for an extended period of time, how is your sense of place - do you tend to lose track of its "footprint" or knock it into things?

- Doors and staircases: difficult or simple?  Any special maneuvers necessary?

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"Antique Costume"

On Pinterest, I have boards set up for every decade.  Because I use them to get an idea of what people were wearing in that decade, I like to filter out paintings showing people in clothing that would not have actually been worn.  (Also, I've seen enough people with the impression that all portraits depict actual clothing, trying to figure out how the painted garments work, that I want to help out by marking them as costumes.)  I have a board set up for specifically "exotic costume", meaning the Turkish-inspired robes, often fur-edged, which are not very common among the specifically-for-painting costumes, but several types of dress get lumped together under "antique costume", as they were intended to be historical dress.

I

Lady Mary Fairfax, Philippe Mercier, 1741; Fairfax House PC1994/370

The most common (I don't always even pin them anymore) are the seamless "Classical" gowns.  With no visible openings and sometimes no waist seams, these were most likely not even costumes kept in the studio, but totally imagined - some artists, like Joseph van Aken (1709-1749), were employed just to paint clothing, and it's very possible that they would be practiced enough to be able to produce realistic-looking clothes and drapery from their imaginations, realistic enough to fool the viewer into thinking they're real and trying to interpret them that way.

Portrait of a Lady, John Vanderbank, 1737; York Museums Trust YORAG : 1470

The common aspects of this dress are deep, pointed necklines that show the shift; wide sleeves with no cuffs, often pleated up and pinned over the arm; no or few seams; loose hair with pearls wound into it; and billowing lengths of drapery.

II

Bridget Williams, Thomas Hudson, 1755; Llyrfrgell Gendlaethol Cymru PZ03977

I recently discovered the BBC's Your Paintings website (through Old Rags), and have been pinning and pinning and pinning like crazy - I think I added over a thousand pins within the last couple of weeks.  At some point, I went through everything tagged "portrait" (really), but as many paintings are still untagged, I started looking through the full works of various artists I'd already tagged for a couple of paintings.  When I hit Thomas Hudson, I started coming across many variations of this outfit.  A fitted, dark bodice with Tudor-ish jeweled chains wrapped around and pinned to it; sheer, full sleeves, held in at the elbow with ribbons, sometimes over fitted sleeves of a contrasting color; a lace medicis collar; pearls wound in the hair; and a cocked hat with plumes.

Frances Hort, Mrs John Parker, Thomas Hudson, ca. 1759; National Trust 872275

The caption for the above portrait was illuminating.  "Van Dyck dress", as it was reportedly called, although the first uses of this term that I've found are in the nineteenth century, was meant to specifically resemble seventeenth century clothing.  This sort of costume could have possibly been worn by sitters and by participants in masquerades (see Aileen Ribeiro).  Unlike the Classical fitted-but-drapey gowns, these have realistic seams and wrinkles that make them seem to have been on a real body when painted.

Phila Franks, Thomas Hudson, ca. 1745; Jewish Museum London JM 871

The Honourable Anne Howard, Lady Yonge, John Vanderbank, 1737; National Trust 653164

Rhoda Apreece, Mrs Francis Blake Delaval, attr. Enoch Seeman the younger, ca. 1730; National Trust 1276716

III

Anne Parsons, Daughter of Alderman Humphrey Parsons, Brewer and Lord Mayor of London, Thomas Hudson, 1753; University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education 6

This gown/type of gown falls under "Van Dyck dress" (and is more accurate to the seventeenth century than the previous).  It looks as though Thomas Hudson had a real masquerade costume in his studio for sitters to wear, since these appear to be the same outfit: a gown with slashed undersleeves and wide oversleeves (en canon in the Galerie des Modes parlance), front lacing over a stomacher, a parfait contentement bow on the chest, and a needlelace collar and cuffs.

Frances Hunt, Thomas Hudson, ca. 1755; National Trust 884948

Martha Tyrrell, Lady Drury, and Her Daughter, Mary Ann Drury, Later Countess of Buckingham, attr. Thomas Hudson, 1754; National Trust 355608

IV

The Honourable Mary Howard, Mrs George Venables-Vernon, John Vanderbank, 1737; National Trust 653153

Then you have another Van Dyck dress, the type that is the most historically accurate.  A back closure, separate bodice and petticoat, and very large sleeves.  The only really glaring inaccuracy is the low waistline and the slightly domed skirts - waistlines and skirt shapes being the most common areas that end up matching contemporary fashions in costumes and art that are meant to be historic.

Lady Susannah Poulett, Enoch Seeman the younger, ca. 1740; National Trust 872249

For comparative purposes:

A Lady of the Spencer Family, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, ca. 1635; Tate Collection T02139

V

Portrait of an Unknown Lady, Called 'Mrs Somerville', attr. Jeremiah Davison, ca. 1740; National Trust 1219973

This last type confused me at first, but I realized that it's a hybrid of the classical and Van Dyck dress: solid-colored taffeta with wide uncuffed or pleated-up sleeves and extra pieces of drapery like the classical/antique costumes, and the front lacing of the second type of Van Dyck dress (III).  Mrs. Somerville's outfit is more involved, but Lady Vernon's below incorporates the front lacing in a more straightforward and less realistic way, though both appear as imaginary garments.

Martha Harcourt, Lady Vernon, Enoch Seeman the younger, ca. 1744; National Trust 653146

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What's Going On?

Because I have the fashion plates to post, I don't really think to update very often about my life, my sewing projects, etc.  But stuff does happen in those areas!

- I went out with the Empire State Costumers to the Victorian Stroll in Troy last Sunday (not in costume, but everyone else was, and they looked great!), and then to Linda Baumgarten's talk on the history of quilting at the Albany Institute.  I got to meet her, it was so cool!

- I'm having a few weeks off from working at the Chapman, because it made sense for me to wait until the exhibition space could be emptied and then filled with the objects in the storage unit, as I've put numbers on everything else and if I stayed until then the grant would nearly run out while I did less necessary things.  Don't feel sorry for me, it was my idea!

- The 1771 L'Art de la Lingere, by M. de Garsault, was shamelessly dangled in front of me and now I'm trying to translate that as well as the Galerie des Modes.  Once I'm done I'm going to post it all, but for now I'll give you a teaser: the list given of all the items supplied by a Lingere (one who makes linens) for a wealthy woman's trousseau.  The garments that are farmed out to seamstresses are marked with an asterisk.

 "A Laundry Maid Ironing", Henry Robert Morland, ca. 1765; Tate Collection N01403

STATE OF A TROUSSEAU

For the Head

A city Toilette in muslin or dentelle [bobbin lace].

A country Toilettein muslin.

Six Trousses or comb Etuis, of good basin [a cotton fabric] of Troyes.

Six over-Pelotes, of the same.

Forty-eight Toilette Napkins.

Twenty-four Toilette Aprons.

Six Peignoirs, of which four are trimmed in good muslin and two in dentelle.

Thirty-six Frottoirsfor taking off rouge, in basin with nap.

Thirty-six Frottoirsfor taking off powder, in doubled muslin.

A Coiffure, the Around-the-throat and pleated Fichu, of point d'Alençon.

A Coiffure, the Around-the-throat and pleated Fichu, of point d'Angleterre.

A Coiffure, the Around-the-throat and pleated Fichu, of true Valenciennes lace.

A Coiffure called Batting-the-eye of embroidered Maline, for undress.

Six simple Fichusin mille-fleur muslin trimmed with dentelle, for undress.

Twelve muslin Fichus.

Twelve piqué full Caps trimmed with a narrow dentelle, for night.

Twelve full Caps with two rows [of ruffles] in muslin and dentelle, for night.

Twelve full Caps with two rows [of ruffles] most beautiful, for day, in case of indisposition.

Twelve Head-bandsor Bandeaux trimmed with a narrow dentelle, for night.

Twelve full Coiffsin muslin, for night.

Six full Coiffs in fabric used for stiffening, for day.

Twelve Pillowcases, of which ten are trimmed with muslin, and two with dentelle.

Six piqué Caps of a medium formality.

For the Body

Seventy-two Chemises.

Seventy-two Handkerchiefsin half-Hollande.

Forty-eight Handkerchiefsin Batiste.

Seventy-two pairs of Under-stockings.

* Six Jumps in a good basin.

Twelve Stomacherstrimmed at the top with a narrow dentelle.

* Six Camisoles [loose garments worn over shifts] with cords, in good cotton cloth or a good Indian basin, lined with napped basin, for night.

* Six piqué Petticoats in muslin.

* Six Underpetticoats for the summer of good cotton cloth or Indian basin.

* Six Bedgowns / Six Petticoats in good embroidered muslin, trimmed with the same, for what is called a pretty Déshabillé.

Six Jumps Trimmings/ Six Around-the-throats / Twelve pairs of Ruffles in scalloped muslin.

Six Jumps Trimmings/ Twelve Around-the-throats / Twelve pairs of Ruffles in dentelle backed with embroidered muslin.

Six pairs of fabric Sleeves for washing the hands.

Forty-eight fabric Cloths for washing the arms.

Seventy-two fabric Cloths for the Garderobe [toilet].

 

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Chapeau à la Spa, or à la Devonshire

Back when I started this blog, I did quite a few posts on different types of eighteenth century gowns, illustrated with fashion plates and paintings.  At that time, my priority was in posting, and I didn't really adhere to my citation standards (or download/upload each picture, rather than hotlinking - not only is hotlinking bad *slaps wrist*, it means that when a museum like the Met goes through and changes its links all your pictures disappear), so I try to go back and redo the pictures, add links to their museum pages, and give their accession numbers for identification purposes.  I was fixing up the page on levites when I kept noticing the recurrence of the term "Spa hat".

Gallerie des Modes, 1779; MFA 44.1439

The earliest mention of the chapeau à la Spa explains that the hat was created in Spa and moved from there to the French court. It was worn by the Duchess of Devonshire, a repeated visitor, and was also called the chapeau à la Devonshire.  In 1779, though married, she stayed at Spa with her mother and younger sister; the Duke was preparing soldiers for the war against America and France, but at Spa aristocracy from all countries could mingle on neutral ground.  Georgiana was specifically noted as having a "particular admirer" in Mme de Polignac, who is presumably the one who brought the style to court.  (See: Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.)

Gallerie des Modes, 1780; MFA 44.1503

The Spa hat was of black straw, cocked three times.  Bows decorated the cocked sides, and a ribbon ran around the crown.  Ostrich plumes in varied colors were a must, but the flowers were optional and possibly not usual.

 Gallerie des Modes, 1780; MFA 44.1491

It's notable that the chapeau à la Spa only seems to appear in fashion plates with "oriental" styles - collared Levites, polonaise jackets.  These are of interest to costumers, but don't appear frequently in collections, because they were fairly short-lived trends and had the strong class connotations dressing very fashionably carries.  Appearing in fashion plates with these marks the Spa hat, despite its relatively simple form, as being an elite trend.

 Gallerie des Modes, 1780; MFA 44.1442

It was also a short-lived trend.  I can only find it in plates from 1779 and 1780, and no references in other fashion periodicals.  It would certainly be an interesting style to replicate, however!

Edit: While I can only find the actual chapeau à la Spa in those years, there are other fashion plates and paintings that show what appear to be later variations, very similar except that the hat brim is cocked only twice, or not at all.

Gallerie des Modes, 1783; MFA 44.1565

Gallerie des Modes, 1784; MFA 44.1579

1784; LWL 784.04.03.01.2+

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Lace Identification Basics

I go through a lot of records each day at my internship, and see a lot of descriptions of textile objects (since I'm into clothes, doilies, etc. at the moment), and see a lot of Wrong Things that quickly develop into pet peeves.  Some examples: "kimono sleeves" (used to mean "cut in one with body", not accurate); "flapper dress"; the construction "X in color"; "under-" attached to any piece of clothing that is already worn under clothes (underslip, underdrawers, etc.).  Some of these I can understand, but one thing that makes me stop and stare is the massive lace confusion.  Knitted lace will be labeled crocheted, crocheted will be labeled bobbin, bobbin will be labeled knitted.  So I thought, hey, why not make a post on laces?  (Other than because I'm preaching to the choir.)

[NB: I'm missing a few pictures that I thought I took, so there are a few blank spaces.  I should have filled them in by Tuesday.]




Handmade Laces:

Bobbin Lace

Bobbin lace is great.  Once you've seen it a few times, it's immediately recognizable because it's so clear.  Every thread's path is traceable, and each one gets used actively (rather than being a passive warp all the way down).  The two pictures below are shown sideways to the direction they were made.

Filet Lace

In filet lace, the maker first creates a knotted net with a square mesh.  Then the motifs are filled in by weaving with a needle and thread.  Like bobbin lace, you can follow the threads' paths with your eyes.  The knots in the net are also an important identifier, as machines can't replicate them well.

Tape Lace

Tape lace is created with premade - either machine-made or bobbin - tapes, which are basted down to a piece of fabric or board in the desired shape.  Then the brides (pronounced "brids") are strung between them to sew them together.  This was a fairly popular craft around the turn of the twentieth century.

Knitted Lace

For the most part, knitted lace is recognizable because it's done in garter stitch.  Historically, anyway.  It also tends to not be as lacy and open as other types of edgings, but for the most part: if you understand what knitting looks like on a small gauge, you can spot it.  L. M. Montgomery mentions it in Anne of Green Gables:

Sophia Sloane offered to teach her a perfectly elegant new pattern of knit lace, so nice for trimming aprons.

Crocheted Lace

Because of crochet's versatility, three examples of crocheted lace can look completely different.  One the one hand, you have lace that, like knitted lace, uses the method with a fine thread and ordinary techniques.  It looks a bit like granny squares.

On the other hand, you have crocheted filet lace imitation, where flat motifs are created against a background of chain-stitched squares that look sort of like the net.  You can see the chains in the net, though, and of course there are no knots.

On the third hand, there is Irish crochet.  In this method, individual motifs are crocheted (sometimes three-dimensionally) and then joined with crocheted chains that imitate the thorned (picoted) brides of tape lace.

Reticella Needle Lace

One of the older types of needle lace, reticella is performed by creating a grid of base threads - either by pulling out (or cutting) the ones in between, or by laying down threads by hand.  More threads are strung between the gridlines to create motifs, and these are all thickened with buttonhole stitching.  Solid areas are filled in with tight, close loops.  Other types of needle lace with less geometric bases took over for use in clothing by the eighteenth century, but it made a slight resurgence as a craft in the early twentieth century.

Teneriffe Lace

This isn't very common; I think it was mostly popular in the early twentieth century, as a craft or a souvenir. Each motif is made separately by stringing spokes through a circle and weaving around them with a needle.  You tend to see it on household linens rather than clothing.

Tatted Lace

I've tried to do tatting and found it very confusing, but it's easy to spot. It's created in linked circular motifs, often with picots.  Generally, it's seen on mid-Victorian pieces.

Machine-made Laces:

Barmen Lace

An imitation of bobbin lace, and a pretty good one.  Because of the way the machine's bobbins work, you can generally follow the paths of the threads.  However, a) if you put it up next to a piece of genuine bobbin lace, it will look shoddy and fake and like the tension is out of whack, and b) in areas of half-stitch ground, bobbin lace will have threads running in both diagonals and horizontally, while Barmen lace will have diagonals and verticals.  In general, machine laces rely on vertical warps while hand-made ones don't.

Schiffli Chemical Lace

The Schiffli machine is essentially a sewing machine that was used to embroider fabric commercially.  The lace pattern would be sewn on a special material that could be dissolved without harming the stitches, and then that's exactly what would happen.  Sometimes, outlines are sewn around a non-dissolvable fabric, often for petals and such, or it's used to create eyelets.  The main thing about recognizing it is that it always looks a bit fuzzy and indistinct.

Handmachine Lace

This is also a chemical lace, but a nicer one.  It doesn't have the same fuzziness as Schiffli, and  it's not always satin-stitch - solid areas look woven, I'm not sure how it works.

There are a lot of other machine laces, but they're pretty obvious so I won't go into them (also, I don't tend to take pictures of them when I see them because they're not as interesting).  But if you'd like a more serious treatment of the subject, Pat Earnshaw's Identification of Machine Laces is very thorough, as is this booklet from the Dress and Textile Specialists and V&A, Identifying Handmade and Machine Lace.


I have a few exciting posts to make this week - I'm going to try to type them up this weekend and space them out during the week, since I don't get much of a chance to blog then but I surely can hit "Publish".  I want to drop intriguing hints but they all give the game away, so - stay tuned!

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Dutch Jacket

Many, many thanks to KittyCalash for posting her latest article, Dutch Treat.  Back in May, I was looking into the caraco as a result of seeing it defended as accurate for Revolutionary War contexts on the basis of a single extant example in the Snowshill Collection.  I came to the conclusion that whatever the item was, it wasn't called a caraco, and that it didn't seem likely to be widely worn in America or Britain.

KittyCalash found two runaway notices mentioning Dutch women running away in "Dutch jackets".  (I really need to get one or two of the runaway notice books, or figure out some way to access American newspapers online without paying for a really expensive subscription.)  I can find other references to Dutch jackets that imply a couple of different garments:

- Several modern sources describe the 17th century coat often seen in Vermeer's works as a "Dutch jacket".  This probably isn't relevant at all.

Woman Holding a Balance, Johannes Vermeer, ca. 1664; National Gallery of Art 1942.9.97

- In a runaway notice from 1750, the Dutch jacket is sleeveless and worn by a Dutch man under a jacket as a waistcoat.

It seems quite possible to me that the "caraco" was called a Dutch jacket in America, and tended to be worn only or mainly by Dutch immigrants.  Perhaps there were specific male and female versions?  I'm not going to insist on the term in any academic context, probably, but in general this seems like a much better turn to use instead of caraco.

ETA: As Sharon Burnston pointed out on Kitty's post, though, it must be remembered that "Dutch" also meant "German" at the time.

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Polonaise Planning

When I went to Williamsburg, I knew that I wanted to buy some fabric at Mary Dickinson’s store.  Well, I didn’t know at first; I forgot until I saw the store and went, “OH, YES, OF COURSE I MUST.”  And I’ve wanted to make a polonaise* for a while, both because they’re cool and because I should put my money where my mouth is, or something, and make one if I’m going to make a post every time I come across a reference to them.

*a large part of me wants to spell it “polonese” because I’m getting more into using English terms, but another part of me is fairly sure that a) that would look weird to everyone and b) I’ve got enough problems insisting on a stricter definition of the polonaise, do I really need to compound it by being crazy about spelling as well?

I was probably influenced by the heat into choosing one called something something "blossoms" (I think?  It's a very large floral chintz-type print - I think it's the one you can see a bit of on Sarah in the pictures here on Two Nerdy History Girls) as it has a white ground.  It’s very beautiful, but the trouble is that fairly soon after ordering it I started wondering if it were even close to being suitable for a polonaise.  I know from past research that it was considered by some to be a style of dress that only the wealthy ought to wear; paintings of women in polonaises show them made in silk.

"The Music Party", Louis Rolland Trinquesse, 1774; Alte Pinakothek HuW 37

I thought that I’d better go back to the fashion plates first, because I knew that a lot of them were showing walking and negligee dress, which might be more casual.  Fortunately, I did find a few good leads.

     "Polonaise ...", Gallerie des Modes, 1779; MFA 44.1390                                       "Jeune femme vêtue d'un caraco à la Polonoise ...", Gallerie des Modes, 1780; MFA 44.1468

These two (the second is a polonaise jacket and I'm counting it) are printed linen in very similar patterns: a blue vermicelli ground, with a floral border.  That’s not really the same as printed cotton - and it's not very similar to my fabric - but it’s similar in terms of value at the time.  There are also other fashion plates with polonaises in muslin, striped Indian cotton, and a floral printed cotton.  So cotton and prints in general are all right.

I like studying extant examples, but the trouble here is that there aren’t very many of them, all of them that I know of are silk, and none of them in a silk patterned anything like this cotton.  (What of this example in the V&A, you say?  I'm not sure it counts.  The skirt looks like it's cut like a polonaise, rounded, but the bodice is fitted with a waist seam and it's been altered, so who knows what that skirt was like originally.)  But when it comes to cotton clothing, absence of evidence is definitely not evidence of absence, as cotton degrades pretty easily – it also tends to be more attractive for cutting up for patchwork or rags, as it’s less shiny.

The fabric hasn’t arrived yet and I have a lot of other things to do right now so this isn’t exactly a pressing quandary, but I want to be sure it's completely right for a polonaise.  I'm pretty sure it's acceptable.  My issue is that I have a principle of not doing anything I can’t justify to a hypothetical person who comes up to me and demands to know my documentation for doing such-and-such.  (This is not a principle I think everyone else needs to hold to!)  This isn’t because I worry that it’s going to happen – I’m nearly certain it won’t ever – but for me, costuming is an extension of my research.  Not so much in the sense that it’s experimental archaeology, although it can be; more in the sense that the sewing is the last part of the research, researching inspires me to sew, or to want to sew (let's be honest).  Also, I’m unnecessarily serious about everything.  And if that hypothetical person ever does show up, I want to be smug and reduce them to a stammer.

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