Friday Video: Being a Regency Lady Ain't Easy

Loretta reports:

There’s quite a bit of variation in the extent to which re-enactors strive for historical accuracy, from hand-sewing, using the tools and methods that would have been used in the given time period—as is done at Colonial Williamsburg, for instance—to the people who create facsimiles or costumes rather than actual historical dress.

This lady makes no bones about the modern methods she uses to achieve a Regency look. But the thing is, she’s just a treat to watch. I think you’ll laugh at least once, maybe several times, as she prepares for the ball. You will also understand how important a lady’s maid was.

YouTube Video by Karolina Żebrowskaska: A Historical Get Ready With Me - 1808 Regency Edition

Image at upper left 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 or the video title.

Friday Video(s): Fashion Treasures from the Museum of London

Isabella reporting:

Today's post combines the best of Friday Videos and Breakfast Links. Timothy Long, Curator of Fashion and Decorative Arts at the Museum of London, creates wonderful super-short videos highlighting special items from the collection. Most of the videos are largely silent with hand-lettered captioning as guideposts, and only Mr. Long's hands appear (clad in bright blue gloves) as he turns the garments.

So far, however, Mr. Long has yet to post the videos on YouTube or Vimeo, and so I can't embed them here. But this is too much under-a-minute information not to share, so here are links to some of my recent favorites. If you're on Twitter, you can also follow Mr. Long directly @fashion_curator. You never know what he'll uncover next!

• The finer details of a pair of super-skinny men's trousers, c1810, above, including a close look at how the seams split and were mended.

• The curious pocket on a 1940s blouse.

• Epaulettes c1900 in their own velvet-lined carrying case.

• Exploring the interior of a c1805 silk satin dress.

• The Countess of Airlie's ermine-trimmed velvet dress, below, was worn to the coronation in 1911 of George V, and again in 1937 for the coronation of George VI.

• An elaborate 1830s uniform coat that belonged to a Deputy Lieutenant of the City of London.

• Uncovering the sheets of archival tissue paper to reveal a glimpse into London's haberdashers.

• An 18thc embroidered men's coat with a mysterious past.

• Finally, what Mr. Long calls his favorite discovery of 2016 (so far): a collection of Edwardian chokers.

Fashions for February 1842

February 1842 fashions

 Loretta reports:

Today we make another visit to the fashions of Victoria’s reign.  Since hers was a lo-o-o-ong one, there’s quite a bit of fashion.  This is from the earlier Victorian era, before the really big skirt spread.

You'll notice a different approach to hair styles from those of the 1820s and 1830s.  While those went riotously upward, these put the emphasis at the back of the head, in keeping with the downward slope of shoulders and close-fitting sleeves.
                                                                   
Fashions from the Magazine of the Beau Monde for February 1842, courtesy Oxford University via Google Books. 
Please click on images to enlarge. 

A Rare Wedding Dress for a Highland Bride, c. 1785

Isabella reporting,

Wedding dresses are always special. Fans of the current miniseries Outlander were eagerly anticipating the wedding dress worn by the heroine, and when it finally appeared, social media was ablaze with reactions. While I'm not about to tackle whether Claire's gorgeous, glittering costume was appropriate either to 18th c. Scotland or to the book (although here's a thoughtful blog post with pictures, defending the costume designer's choices), I decided it's the perfect time to share a wedding dress that was undeniably worn for an 18th c. Fraser wedding in the Highlands.

Alas, I haven't seen this dress in person -  it's in the collection of the Inverness Museum and Art Gallery - so my observations are based on photographs and other sources. The dress was made around 1785 for the wedding of Isabella MacTavish to Malcolm Fraser, both of Stratherrick in the Scottish Highlands. Like the Elizabeth Bull wedding dress that I wrote about earlier this summer (see here and here), this dress has also been worn by successive generations of Fraser brides.

The dress was not made by a skilled mantua-maker. The style is simple, and a little old-fashioned for its time – though apparently there's allowance beneath the back skirts to accommodate a trendy false rump for extra volume. Nor is the stitching the work of a professional, with mismatched plaids and awkward seaming. For more details about the dress's construction, including sketches, see this article by Catharine Niven, curator at Inverness.

What fascinated me was the possibility that this dress, much like the Bull dress, had been made by the bride's family, and perhaps by the bride herself. It's unlikely that any scholar will ever discover the true maker's name, but it's tantalizing to imagine several women collaborating on this single, significant garment.

And it was significant - not only because of its ceremonial purpose, but on account of the fabric from which it was stitched. In this article, scholar Peter Eslea MacDonald notes that while the the dress was made around 1785, the wool plaid is likely much older, from c.1740-1760. Because of the amount of red dye used, this was originally an expensive and much-valued plaid. I've shared a number of 18th c. dresses (here and here) that were remade into new fashions, a thrifty way to recycle a costly fabric. But however beautiful the silks used in those dresses were, this plaid was different.

Traditional tartan plaids represented different clans in the Highlands, and were worn proudly. and rebelliously as well. After the disastrous Jacobite Rising of 1745,  England passed laws designed to further destroy the power of the clans, and to force the Highlanders towards assimilation. As part of the Act of Proscription of 1746, the Dress Act prohibited wearing "highland clothing" such as tartans. The penalties were severe, and included imprisonment and transportation. The forbidden textiles became even more precious, symbolic of all that had been lost, and were carefully hidden away for safe-keeping far from English eyes.

The Dress Act was finally repealed in 1782. This dress was made soon afterwards. The true story of Isabella MacTavish's wedding dress may be lost, but how easy it is to image a grandmother reverently bringing out this MacTavish clan tartan that she'd hidden nearly forty years earlier, and giving it to the bride for her wedding dress – a dress that would have symbolized love, and so much more.

Many thanks to our good friend costume historian Kimberley Alexander for sharing this dress with us. Her blog Silk Damask is one of our favorites!

Above: Isabella MacTavish's Wedding Dress, c. 1785. Photo courtesy of the Inverness Museum & Art Gallery.

A Pair of Interesting Ladies in Pink, c. 1771

Isabella reporting,

If you're a fellow Nerdy History Person, then likely you, too, spend a great deal of time looking at images on the Internet, squirreling them away in endless desktop files and on Pinterest. Sometimes those images just seem to belong together, whether there's any historical reason for them to be linked or not.

To me, the portraits of these two ladies look like long-separated friends. Both were painted in the early 1770s. The lady, upper left, is now unknown, her identity lost over time. She was painted by Joseph Wright around 1770, and most likely in Liverpool. From the luxury of her clothes and setting, she was obviously wealthy, and she is shown at her genteel needlework (I think it's netting), her gold-fringed work bag on the table beside her. One authority speculates that she was "nouveau riche."

Wright was working hard to establish his career as a portraitist, competing (and, to his frustration, not succeeding) against the big names like Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds for more fashionable commissions. So it's likely that this woman was a prosperous merchant's wife, not a titled lady, and as lovely as this portrait is, it wouldn't have been copied as an engraving to be sold in print shops, the way portraits of royalty and the celebrities of the day would have been.

It's a very different case with the second lady, lower right. Margaret Kemble Gage was born in New Jersey to one of the more socially prominent and well-connected families in the colonies, and she had furthered her position by marrying Thomas Gage, the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America. His officers referred to her as "The Duchess," and her beauty and charm made her place in New York society before the Revolution as close to nobility as the city possessed. She was painted by Boston native John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) in 1771. The portrait received considerable acclaim, and in 1772 was sent to London, where it was displayed at the Society of Artists.

Copley was the most accomplished of the colonial artists, prodigiously gifted. It's impossible to know how he became so skillful so far removed from the artistic centers in Europe. He would have seen the work of Gainsborough and Reynolds as well as of Old Masters only through line engravings, and perhaps painted copies owned by his wealthy patrons. He longed for the opportunities and inspiration of Europe, and in 1774, on the eve of the American Revolution, he finally sailed for England, never to return.

It's highly unlikely that these two portraits could have influenced the other, or that each artist even knew of the other portrait's existence. They were painted at the same time, with an ocean between them. It's pure but uncanny coincidence that both ladies are dressed in the same old-rose color silk, and the same style costume, a Turkish-inspired form of fancy-dress/casual clothing called a sultana, a popular choice for 18th c. portraits. They're both wearing this costume with stylish, daring informality, the relaxed shape of their bodies and breasts showing they're without stays. Patterned sashes, gauzy scarves, and strands of pearls woven through their hair and around their sleeves complete the sense of exoticism.

Yet as much alike as their costumes are, I think it's how their faces are painted that made me link them together in my head. Both are undeniably beautiful women, but their beauty isn't idealized and flattered into bland prettiness, the too-aggressive Photoshopping of the 18th c. These two ladies are painted as individuals, as women you'd like to have conversations with; they look interesting. If I were one of them, this is how I'd liked to be painted, too.

But that's just my rambling. What do you think of these two portraits? Which do you prefer?

For more about 18th c. sultanas, please see this subsequent post.

Above: Portrait of a Woman, by Joseph Wright (Wright of Derby), c. 1770, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Below: Mrs. Thomas Gage, by John Singleton Copley, 1771, Timken Museum of Art.

"Costumes of Downton Abbey" at Winterthur Museum

Isabella reporting,

This weekend I finally made the trek to Winterthur Museum to see one of the most popular exhibitions of the year: Costumes of Downton Abbey (running now through January 4, 2015). The exhibition features 40 historically inspired costumes from the popular PBS series along with photos of the costumes as they appeared in the shows.

Shown in contrast to the fictional Crawleys are their real-life American contemporaries, the wealthy duPont family who built the country estate of Winterthur. The world of the duPonts and their servants is represented by a wonderful selection of vintage photographs, objects, portraits, and quotations from the first decades of the 20th c. - an informative juxtaposition to the costumes.

I appreciated how the exhibition's curators have stressed that the costumes are exactly that: they're not historical garments or reproductions. They're costumes, created as part of the story-telling process, and designed to not only help create the characters and their world, but also to look good on the television screen. While past fashions certainly inspired the costumes, there are behind-the-scenes short-cuts and accommodations to the actors and the audience that I find fascinating. As the introduction to the exhibition explains:

"The costume designers for Downton Abbey have only seven weeks to complete each character's wardrobe for an entire season. In the words of costume designer Susannah Buxton, their creations are actually 'translations' of period dress, inspired by the past but influences by modern styles and enhanced for dramatic television effect. There is a mix of old and new. Vintage fragments of lace, pleating, and silks are incorporated into the new fabric that is dyed and distressed to create what appears to be a coordinated whole (at least on television.) Part of the pleasure in viewing these costumes up close is seeing evidence of use and construction."

This is all well and good, but as I studied the costumes - which are quite gorgeous - I did wish there had been a bit more explanation. Not every costume was created from scratch in that "seven weeks." Some have come from the famous English costumers of Cosprop, and have appeared in other productions (such as this embroidered coat, created from a tablecloth!), while others are actual vintage pieces. I wondered how large a staff Ms. Buxton has to assist her, and whether they created all the beautiful embroidery and beadwork that is such a feature of these costumes, or had the needlework sent out to specialists.

But these are tiny quibbles. Whether you're a die-hard Downton fan (and I was clearly surrounded by them today, speaking reverently about their favorite characters and dresses) or not, the exhibition is fascinating and beautiful, and well worth a visit - as if you need another reason to visit wonderful Winterthur! See here for more information.

All photographs copyright 2014 Susan Holloway Scott.

A Fashionable Birthday Party in Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

This week I'm attending the Millinery Through Time conference at Colonial Williamsburg. It's been a wonderful gathering - an entire auditorium filled with true-hearted Nerdy History Folk, and I wish all the rest of you could be here with us, too.  It's also turned into a kind of impromptu Fashion Week, Colonial Williamsburg-style.

The conference is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop. While the shop is housed in one of the original buildings, dating to the 18th c., it was used for many different purposes over the centuries. Before it was restored to a colonial-style shop in the 1930s, the building had most recently been used as a garage. Sixty years ago, the shop was returned to its original purpose as a millinery shop, and opened to the public as part of Colonial Williamsburg.

While the talks, papers, and workshops presented at the conference have shown how the millinery trade has evolved over time, the first night's reception was mainly a celebration in honor of the shop and its people.

And, like all good birthday parties, attendees were dressed to the proverbial nines. Many of them are re-enactors, historic costumers, and interpreters at historic sites and museums, so the clothes were quite splendid, as you can see here. The best part is that everyone shown here MADE their own costumes - no rentals here! Please click on the photos to enlarge them; I've made them small here to be able to include more.

Most importantly, happy birthday to the Margaret Hunter Shop!