Most of the historical fashion I post here comes from Ackermann’s Repository or La Belle Assemblée. These are from The Royal Lady’s Magazine, which contains some fine fashion prints for the 1830s. Since they showed four dresses for November, I’m posting two today (day dress) and two tomorrow (evening dress).
Today I’ve included their note regarding the illustrations, which I found extremely intriguing. Have any of you ever seen any of these paper models?
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FOR 1832.—No. XI.
PUBLISHED IN NUMBER XXIII. OF THE ROYAL LADY'S MAGAZINE, AND ARCHIVES OP THE COURT OF ST.JAMES's.
EMBELLISHED WITH FOUR PORTRAITS OF LADIES IN FASHIONABLE COSTUMES FOR NOVEMBER.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Our Fashionable Readers should know, that the drawings of the fashions are made from beautifully-formed paper models, which may be seen and purchased—as, for the purposes of the Magazine, they are useless after the copies are published.
This portion of the Magazine being completely detached, and paged for binding, alone, may be had separately, at One Shilling per number, generally with three or five figures or dresses, entirely new and English inventions.
FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBER.
No. l.
Pelisse of arbre de Judée, gros des Indes; the corsage is made high, plain, and covered by a double cape, broad on the shoulders, each cape is edged with a band of satin, of the same colour as the dress; plaited or crimped into minute folds, and edged with cording. Another and similar band heads the hem of the skirt, which is fastened down in front, by bows of satin ribbon; hat of green velours épingle, trimmed with satin ribbons, and a plume of elegant white feathers; bottines of kid.
No. 2.
A dress of bleu Adélaide merino, trimmed with rouleaux, high corsage, and plain, full Amadis sleeve, collar of beautifully embroidered net or muslin ; amber-coloured Cachemire shawl, with a rich double border, of a delicate pattern on a white ground. Hat of white moiré, ornamented with a bunch of laburnum, and tied with white figured ribbon; a deep blonde curtain surrounds the brim, which is also trimmed inside with a blonde ruche.
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From The Royal lady's magazine and archives of the court of St. James's, 1832.
Difficult to say from the description whether the drawings were made from flat figures or dimensional models. If flat, they would, of course, been like paper dolls. See http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O101180/paper-doll/ for "Miss Wild-Fire", a "fashion-stricken" 1832 paper doll. If dimensional, I wonder if they could have printed the prints from papier mache stereotype plates, which you can see in a modern version here:
ReplyDeletehttp://qualityinprint.blogspot.com/2010/05/wayback-view-stereotype-plate-making.html
These plates are dimensional, rather than flat, and would, as the authors say, be useless after the edition was printed. This paper matrix stereotype process (also called "wet mat") was invented c. 1828 by Claude Genoux so the technology would have been cutting-edge.
Chris, thank you! I was totally unaware of the paper matrix process. How interesting. It would explain some differences in fashion illustrations after the late 1820s.
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