Friday Video: Victorian Photographs in Color

Loretta reports:

When it comes to 19th and early 20th century fashion, as our readers are aware, it’s not all that easy to get a sense of what clothes looked like on real people. Fashion plates offer a simplistic idea of color but tend to be anatomically inaccurate (if not downright bizarre) and flat. Paintings show us color, texture, accessories, and so on, but they tend to be idealized, a sort of Photoshop version of the real person. Photography, once it gets going in the Victorian era, offers a degree of realism (they did doctor photos), but in black and white. Museums show us the actual clothing, but on mannequins often lacking accessories (and very often, underwear).

This video, featuring colorized Victorian and Edwardian photos, helps us get a real sense of real women in a range of clothing. Some of you will recognize at least a few of the women.



40 Amazing Colorized Photos of Victorian and Edwardian Women
Published by Yesterday Today

Image is a still from the video.

Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be. To watch the video, please click on the title to this post (which will take you to our blog) or the video title (which will take you to YouTube).

Dressing to Look Slender in 1924

Loretta reports:

No doubt a great many women can relate to the issue of slenderness, whose definition seems to have shrunk (pound-wise, that is) over the years.

It seemed to me that this must have been an especially sore spot in the 1920s, when the fashion was for a boyish figure, instead of the emphasis  only a decade or so earlier on curvaceousness. I gained some insight when I came upon a 1920s book on the Internet Archive whose introduction details the author's frustrations with weight gain, dieting, and trying to look good in fashionable clothing.

“I left [my doctor’s] office crestfallen and disappointed, thinking that if he only knew how much the heavy woman wants to appear thin enough to wear smart clothes, if he could only know how she actually longs for the lovely things that fashion creates for the slender types, he would be more sympathetic.”

But the doctor wasn’t, and friends and family were rather shockingly blunt about her weight gain. And so, author Jane Warren Wells decided “If I could not safely reduce, I would at least give the appearance of having reduced. If I could not actually take off thirty pounds, I would make myself look thirty pounds lighter in the eyes of others.”

The result was the book, Dress and Look Slender.

I’ve clipped for your perusal the pages on colors, but the entire book is quite interesting. As well as offering insight into the mindset of a 1920s lady who liked to look elegant & stylish, it offers useful hints as well as commentary many of us can relate to, nearly 100 years later. Her last tip (on page 185) works, I think, for any era.

Slenderizing with color

Slenderizing with color

Fashion image from La Gazette du Bon Ton 1922

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

The Extraordinary Style of the Countess Greffulhe

Isabella reporting,

French women have always had a reputation for being fashionable, but Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, the Countess Greffulhe (1860-1952) made fashion into an opulent gesture of self-expression. While she was known as a patroness of artists, writers, and musicians and as a hostess whose salons attracted the most brilliant members of European society, it is her sense of style that makes her so memorable today.

There are two reasons for this. First, she was immortalized as the fictionalized Oriane, Duchesse de Guermantes, in the famous novel À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. Second, her family preserved much of her famous wardrobe. The highlights of this collection are currently on display in the exhibition Proust's Muse: The Countess Greffulhe at the Museum at FIT in New York City through January 7, 2017. (Many of the pieces appeared first in an earlier exhibition organized by the Palais Galleria, Musée de la Ville de Paris, the permanent repository of the Countess's wardrobe.)

It's an amazing show. The earliest pieces date from 1887, when the Countess was a teen-aged newlywed. Already her taste - and her daring - are on display. There's a sleeveless, black lace bodice that would have been worn over a colored gown, not-so-subtle transparency that must have been shocking at the time.

By the later 1890s, the Countess was not only commissioning clothing from premier couturiers like the House of Worth, but collaborating with them, pushing the designers to create the dramatic clothing she craved. She loved to be the center of attention wherever she went, and journalists devoted countless words to describing what she wore to the opera or theatre. She posed for photographers like Paul Nadar, and polished her "image" before that very-modern sense of the word existed.

One of her most famous dresses by Worth, above left, was known as the "lily dress" for its bold black-and-white embroidered design. The photograph, above right, shows the Countess wearing the dress, with her pose carefully staged with the mirror to display both the dress, and her own beauty.

To me perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the exhibition is that it includes clothes worn by the Countess throughout her long life, from the heavily corseted dresses of the Belle Epoque to the narrower silhouette of the early 1910s, lower left, to straight, beaded shifts of the 1920s, lower right, to the beautifully cut and sinuous dresses and suits of the 1930s. Certain elements of her taste (for example, she frequently wore the color green, flattering to her auburn hair, and she loved exotic Byzantine prints and motifs) remain, weaving in and out of the changing fashions. Yet always her clothes remained constant to who she was, and how she wished to be seen - and remembered.

Unfortunately the Musée de la Ville de Paris prohibited visitor photography. You can see more of the Countess's dresses here, on the the exhibition's blog, and on the museum's Flickr account here.

Many thanks to Nicole Bloomfield, Costume & Textile Conservator, and Ariele Elia, Assistant Curator of Costume & Textile, Museum at FIT, for their help with this post.

Upper left: Evening gown, known as "La Robe aux Lis" (the lily dress) c1896, by House of Worth. Photograph by L. Degraces et Ph.Joffre/Galliera/roger-Viollet.
Upper right: The Countess Greffulhe by Paul Nadar, c1896. 
Lower left: Evening dress, c1913, by Pierre Bulloz. Photograph ©Zach Hilty/BFA.com
Lower right: Evening dress, c1925, by Jenny. Photograph ©Zach Hilty/BFA.com.
Bottom left: The Countess Greffulhe in a Ballgown by Otto Wegener, c1887.
All images from Palais Galliera, Musee de la mode de la Ville de Paris.

From the Archives: Creating Fashionable Coiffures in 1828

1828 hair styles & headwear

Loretta reports:

In my book Lord of Scoundrels, set in 1828, the hero finds the heroine's clothing and hair amusing. I know that when our readers see the fashion plates for the 1820s and 1830s, many feel the same way. But I love Romantic Era fashion, especially the extravagant sleeves and nutty hairstyles. There's an exuberance I find irresistible. The hair, especially, climbing ever upwards, charms me. But one does wonder how this sort of architectural arrangement was managed in the days before hair spray and gels.

Isabella/Susan to the rescue! She sent me a link to a site where historical hairstyles are recreated.  This inspired me to investigate how it was done and what hair products they used.  So I turned to my trusty The Lady’s Stratagem.

One style we see again and again involves two or more big loops sprouting from the top of the head.  In fashion plates, these present an interesting hairstyling puzzle, which the recreations (Photo 2, top row.  Photos 1 & 2, second row) help solve.  According to The Lady’s Stratagem, the hair can be tied first or:

“Just as commonly, the hair is not tied:  you gather it and hold it very firmly In your left hand, twist it with this same hand, and immediately place the comb on it to hold it.  Then you make nœuds d’Apollon or Apollo knots; so are called the large loops of hair on the summit of the head.  This style has been in fashion for a long time; every one says that it will last.”

And it did, well into the 1830s, until about 1836-7, when fashion went droopy.

1828 hair dressing

Since the instructions quoted in The Lady’s Stratagem are lengthy, I can only refer you to that book for the details on creating this style—or, if your French is better than mine, you can follow the directions in Arte de se coiffer soi-même, enseigné aux dames (1828) (here or here).

From what I can determine, one of the hair oils we’ve seen advertised or similar product or a pomade was used to keep hair smoothly in place.

Images: upper left, courtesy Los Angeles Public Library; lower right from Arte de se coiffer soi-même, enseigné aux dames, courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de france.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it. Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you enlarge further and find out more.

Those Tiny 1890s Waists & What Adorned Them

Loretta reports:

Following up a little on the Belle Èpoque video—

My most recent trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts had me taking a closer look at the Kreuzer collection of belt buckles from the late 19th & early 20th centuries and, in particular, information about the collection. The printed placard offers a good example of the difference between engraved images of fashion and real people wearing them. I think this contrast is pretty stark, and it would be more so if these weren’t models but average women, who would probably be a bit more full-figured. Then, as always, models tended to represent a fashionable ideal rather than reality, though not as extremely as the images on the catalog page.

Previously I’ve posted a garnet belt buckle as well as other objects from the VMFA’s outstanding collection, including sporting prints, Art Nouveau furniture, Art Nouveau & Art Deco jewelry (here and here), and decorative objects. These are only small samples of the offerings. The VMFA is a splendid museum, well worth a visit—or several.

Please click on images to enlarge.

From the Archives: Hair Care in the 1820s-1830s

Hair for evening 1828

Loretta reports:

Susan’s posts (here and here )about 1770s hair care sent me to my beloved The Lady’s Stratagem by Frances Grimble.* to see how much had changed (or not) in the 1820s-1830s, the setting for my books.

For those fluent in French, the text from the original, Elisabeth Celnart's Manuel des dames (published between 1827-1833), is here.  Those, like me, who aren’t fluent, will be grateful for Ms. Grimble’s translation.  You will note that, as Isabella pointed out, clean doesn’t necessarily mean what a modern reader thinks it means.  Recipes abound for oils and pomatums.  Shampoo?  Not so much.  It’s more or less a last resort, as you’ll see.

“Your principal task must be to keep your hair extremely clean.  Every morning, before arranging your hair, disentangle it with a large comb, holding it upright in a straight line in order not to break the hairs...When your hair has been well cleansed*...rub it with a square brush with a handle, whose bristles are very soft, or better yet are replaced with fine rice roots...

“When night comes, very gently undo your coiffure, first removing all the black pins which you find there, and shaking out the locks as you let them down.  These steps are especially necessary when your hair has been dressed by a hair-dresser.”

After this the lady is urged to comb her hair well and plait it.  Unplaited hair becomes damaged.  It also easily escapes one’s night cap and soils the pillow.

Hair product c. 1860

“When by nature, or by the prolonged or exaggerated use of oils and pomatums, your hair is greasy to the point of being dull, dense, and flat, you must resort to soap solutions.  Pour a demi-tasse of lukewarm water into a saucer.  Soak a very lightly-perfumed toilet-soap in the water for a few moments, and stir it a little.  Soon the water will be foamy.   Then spread the locks of your hair well apart, and with a sponge dampened with the soapy water, wash them well from all sides.”

You dry the hair with warm linen, then brush it with the rice brush.

Madame recommends that blond hair be “washed very rarely.”

*More about this fabulous compendium here and  here and here and here.)

**by combing

From the Archives: The Myth of the Regency Sylph

Isabella reporting:

Seeing the fashions of 1810 featured in Loretta's blog reminded me of how fashion influences more than just silk and ribbons: it can also determine the stylish ideal of the body beneath those clothes.

Too often, however, the modern perception of what was hot in the late 18th-early 19th c is more a reflection of 21st ideals, especially as influenced by contemporary film versions of Jane Austen's novels. Our sylphs would not have been theirs. Keira Knightley, right, and Gwyneth Paltrow would have been pitied as sad, scrawny creatures, even perhaps consumptive. The ladies that everyone was ogling in a real Regency ballroom would have looked much more like this caricature of the notorious Emma, Lady Hamilton, left, by Thomas Rowlandson.

While later in her career, Emma would be cruelly depicted as blowsy and obese, here she is shown as an eminently desirable and fashionable beauty, with high breasts and well-rounded thighs and bottom. The same kind of lush figure tumbles through countless other drawings by Rowlandson and James Gillray; Google either artist, and you'll see these women over and over. It's easy to look at this body-type and imagine it wearing the clothes in the 1810 fashion plate, or in this one from 1808

The more flattering portrait of Emma, below, also shows exactly how robust a stylish lower half must have been. With fashion dictating a temporary respite from boned corseting, narrow waists lost their importance as an erogenous zone. Instead the interest  shifted to the lush, voluptuous curves below the waist, revealed by the drifting drapery of light silks and linens. For men who had been raised in an era when these mysterious body-parts had been hidden by hoops and heavily draped skirts, the sudden change must have been...exciting.

Where did this different kind of body ideal come from? Just as ancient Roman and Greek art and architecture was influencing nearly every aspect of the decorative arts in the late 18th-early 19th c, fashion, too, took a classical turn. High-waisted gowns and draping shawls were designed to emulate ancient fashions, embroidery patterns featured classical motifs, and looped and knotted hairstyles showed a classical influence as well.

But the undressed bodies of ancient nude statuary also set new standards of physical beauty. While Georgian aristocrats on their Grand Tours were busily checking out naked marble goddesses all across the Continent, one of the must-see statutes was the Aphrodite Kallipygos, right, on display in Naples. This much-admired statue is thought to be a 1st c BC Roman copy of an earlier Greek bronze, and her provocative pose must have left a definite impression of classical booty on countless young Englishmen.

The statue may also have influenced Lady Hamilton, living with her husband Sir William in Naples. For special guests to their villa, Emma performed her "Attitudes," a series of graceful poses inspired by classical art – the same "Attitudes" satirized by Rowlandson in the caricature at the top of this page. While Emma performed in a quasi-classical costume, not in the buff as Rowlandson shows her, there is a similarity between the pose – and the voluptuous figure.

Top left: Lady Hamilton's Attitudes by Thomas Rowlandson, 1790
Lower left: Detail, Emma, Lady Hamilton as Ariadne by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1790
Lower right: Aphrodite Kallipygos, artist unknown, 1st c BC, National Archaeological Museum, Naples

The Hairdresser, 1827

Hairdresser

Loretta reports:

The Book of English Trades was a guide aimed mainly at a young audience, explaining what people did and what they were paid. It continued to appear, year after year, and you can find it online in many editions. The clippings here are from the 1827 edition.

You can read the full entry online beginning here.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Friday Video: 100 Years of Workout Style

Isabella reporting,

It's the third week of January, which means that most of those New Year's fitness resolutions have already gone by the wayside, and you're ready for a little fun fashion history. Even if you're still heading off to the gym five days a week, you'll find this week's short video entertaining. While the video features the specialized clothing that American women have worn over the last century for exercising, it highlights some of the more foolish fads in exercise as well. Thighmaster, anyone?

Rococo Beauty: Mme. de Pompadour at her Dressing Table, 1750

Isabella reporting,

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764), is best remembered as the chief mistress of King Louis XV. This portrait of her - painted by one of her favorite artists, François Boucher - shows her as the epitome of the doll-like beauty so popular in the mid-18thc. French court.

Obviously the goal wasn't a "natural" look. The very fact that the marquise chose to be captured in the intimate act of painting her face shows that artifice was expected, even prized.

As she sits at her looking glass, a lace-edged cape around her shoulders to protect her gown from powder, her gaze is both frank and serene. Her table has not only an oversized swan's-down puff for powder, but also an assortment of silk flowers (more artifice)  that she will be tucking into her hair. On her wrist is a bracelet featuring a cameo of the king, making it clear where her heart - or at least her best interests - lies.

What caught my eye first when I saw this painting, however, was the gold box and brush in her hands. Holding rouge for reddening the cheeks, the box and brush are very similar to one that I'd seen several years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; my blog post about that box is here. While the Met's box dates to several decades after Mme. de Pompadour's death, it's still tantalizing to imagine another lady sitting at her glass in much the same pose - art and an artifact combining to bring a lost world back to life.

This portrait is on display in the newly refurbished Harvard Art Museums on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, well worth a visit if you're in Boston. More imagining: picture the pious Puritan worthies of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who established the college in the 17thc., coming face to face with the lovely, wanton French marquise holding court in their midst....

Above: Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour by François Boucher, c1750. Harvard Art Museums. Photograph by Lydia Scott.
Lower detail copyright President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Friday Video: Lily Elsie, The Most Photographed Edwardian Beauty

Isabella reporting,

Photography was still new in the 1890s, and the notion of building celebrity through photographs was even newer. Long before Instagram selfies (and Photoshop) could make anyone a star, there was Lily Elsie (1886-1962), one of the great beauties of the Edwardian world, and a woman who was called the most photographed woman of her time.

She probably was, and with good reason, too. Born Elsie Hodder in West Yorkshire, the precociously pretty girl first became a child star of the English music hall, and then a chorus girl with the George Edwardes' company on the London stage. Although she was painfully shy and reluctant to take larger roles, Edwardes realized the power of her beauty, and with a makeover aided by the celebrated fashion designer Lucile, he made her a star in the title role of The Merry Widow in 1907.

Despite her success on the stage, it was before the camera where she truly ruled, and the still photographs in this short compilation video prove it. With thick clouds of dark hair, wide-set eyes, an elegant profile, and the required swan-like neck, she epitomized Edwardian beauty, and through her photographs - in magazines and on postcards, the social media of the day - she became famous throughout England and America. There's another, longer video with more photographs of her here.

But fashionable beauty can be notoriously fickle, and when sassy flappers replaced the serene Edwardians, Lily's time was done. Photographers tried to shift her to the new look, tucking her luxurious hair into a close-fitting cloche hat, but the magic wasn't there, and she looks closed-off and miserable.

Her life had lost its glamour, too. In 1920, she retired from the stage and attempted to find contentment in the country with her husband. But the marriage was unhappy and childless, ending in divorce. Ill health and continuing psychological issues finally led to dramatic brain surgery, and her last years were spent in a hospital.

But in these photographs, her undeniable beauty lives on forever. . . .

From the NHG Bookshelf: A Gilded-Age Guidebook for Aspiring American Beauties

Isabella reporting,

We seem to be in an Edwardian-Gilded Age Renaissance. The new season of Downton Abbey recently began in America, and Smithsonian has also launched its own series, Million Dollar American Princesses, with both featuring 19th c. American heiresses who went across the Atlantic to find husbands among the British aristocracy.

As the exhibition of costumes from Downton Abbey wound down its record-breaking run at Winterthur Museum (see my earlier post here), I attended an entertaining talk by Carol McD. Wallace, co-author (with Gail MacColl) of To Marry an English Lord: Tales of Wealth and Marriage, Sex and Snobbery. Originally published in 1989, To Marry has been reissued to appeal to the new surge in interest in the "buccaneers," as novelist Edith Wharton dubbed them: the American beauties who traded staggering fortunes for noble titles.

And this book is fun.  Filled with illustrations and photographs, gossip and scandal, it's the kind of book readers can as easily browse as read cover to cover, and always find considerable entertainment. There's advice on everything from the costs (vast) of running a country estate with years of deferred maintenance, to choosing the proper wardrobe (also vast) for a Season in London. The niceties of calling cards, professional beauties, court presentations, the cut direct, and Newport cottages are also discussed. All the legendary American husband-hunters are here, from Astors to Vanderbilts, to the queens of Midwest commerce, and for the modern sight-seer, there's also a handy directory of which heiresses' homes in Britain are now open to the public.

I especially enjoyed the contemporary quotes that are liberally sprinkled through the books. For example, this from Oscar Wilde: "American youths are pale and precious, or sallow and supercilious, but American girls are pretty and charming – little oases of pretty unreasonableness in a vast desert of practical common-sense."

The fabulous couturier Charles Frederick Worth was more direct: "My Transatlantic friends are always welcome; they have what I call 'the three F's': figures, francs, and faith! That is why I like dressing the Americans."

Or, in the words of a popular musical-comedy song of the day: "The almighty dollar will buy, you bet/A superior class of coronet;/That's why I've come from New York City of U.S.A."

A "Lady with a Scarf," c. 1820, Inspiring Sailors – and Perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne

Isabella reporting,

Museums are like icebergs - very often what's on display for the world to admire is only a tiny fraction of what is actually in the collection, hidden away in storage rooms and warehouses.

This week I again visited one of my favorite historical spots in Boston, The Bostonian Society, located in the Old State House Museum. I was there at the invitation of Patricia Gilrein, Collections Manager, who brought out exquisite baby clothes from the exceptional 18th c. needle of Elizabeth Bull Price (I've already shared her wedding gown and neckerchief) that will soon merit blog posts of their own.

But I also had the chance to follow Patricia off into one of the Society's storage areas, and that's where I encountered this winsome young lady. Although she's posed like a figurehead, ready to lead a ship across the seas, she likely never saw a drop of saltwater. Instead she served as a shop display piece, a model to show off the skills of her maker: Isaac Fowle, an expert carver working from 1807-1832. His shop was at 53 Prince Street in Boston, and the business was continued by his two sons, John D. Fowle and William Henry Fowle, until 1869.

At 74" tall, the figure is larger than life. She's carved from pine, and she's painted white, perhaps to make her look more like a classical statue carved of stone. Unlike the seductive mermaids and idealized goddesses that were favorites of both 19th c. carvers and sailors, this figure looks more like a portrait of a real young woman.  Perhaps she was Isaac Fowle's own wife, sweetheart, or daughter, or a young woman who worked in one of the other shops on Prince Street.

Whoever she might have been, Fowle chose to show her fashionably dressed in a button-front gown, short boots, and lace-trimmed petticoats, and the way the fabric pulls slightly across the front of her bodice (and scandal! no corset!) must have made plenty of sailors sigh.  I love all the little details - the trim and border of her dress, her skirts rippling in the wind, even the brooch at her collar and the bracelet on her wrist – that make her seem almost alive.

But there's a chance she might have inspired more than shipowners and randy sailors. Tradition says this figure was seen by Massachusetts author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), and that she was the inspiration for his fanciful short story "Drowne's Wooden Image" from Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Tales (1846). You can read it online here (it's a very short story), and judge for yourself.

Many thanks to Patricia Gilrein for introducing me to this delightful lady! 

Lady with a Scarf, by Isaac Fowle, c 1820. The Bostonian Society. Photographs copyright 2014 Susan Holloway Scott.