Fashions for December 1922

December 1922 fashions

Loretta reports:

We complete this year's historical fashion plate cycle with a set of patterns and fashion news from the Delineator for December 1922.

The New in New York by Evelyn Dodge

“The jacket blouse and the blouse jacket have elbowed their way well to the front of the Fifth Avenue windows and New York almost killed a very charming style with the kindness of its enthusiastic reception. The jacket and the blouse are twins so much alike that their own mother-designer has difficulty in telling them apart. In many cases they can be used interchangeably, but as the weather grows colder the blouse jacked is more and more made of the fur cloths and heavier clokies, while the jacket blouse appears in the matelassés, crêpe silks and velvets.

"The best Fifth Avenue houses are making their separate skirts quite generally with camisole bodies instead of inside belts. There are two reasons why the camisole is a better bet than the belt with the present styles. If the belt is large enough to rest low on the hip, it is almost impossible to keep in its proper place. If it fits the normal waistline, it has a curiously high-waisted look, an optical delusion produced by the very general acceptance of the lowered waistline.  Practically all blouses, except the under-the-sweater type, are worn outside the skirt. If the blouse is white or partially transparent, the upper part of the skirt shows through when it is mounted on a belt. The camisole does not bring the skirt above the low waistline and it can be made of white China silk if it is to be worn under light, transparent blouses. The camisole top also make an excellent foundation for the jerseys or open-work sweaters that are worn so much in place of blouses ...

"With longer skirts and the more formal type of draped dress the bobbed-hair girl has had to grow up overnight. The closer hair-dressing is partly responsible for the vogue of the long earring, which for evening reaches almost to the shoulder. Some of them seen in the Fifth Avenue windows are made of heavy red gold in long, narrow Egyptian designs triangular in shape. Crystal is very smart for evening or afternoon. Very large hoop earrings are also worn in fine lines of jet or jade or amber.”

December 1922 fashion descriptions

The Delineator, which sells Butterick patterns, offers pages and pages of fashions each month, including children’s clothes, underwear, and sleepwear, as well as ideas for low-cost gifts. If you’re interested in this era, it’s well worth a look.

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Friday Video: Dressing Queen Elizabeth I

Loretta reports:

We’ve been doing quite a few “getting dressed” videos, yet I don’t hesitate to offer one more because, well, historical clothing. And then, too, it’s Lucy Worsley!

Video: Does my bum look big in this? - Tales from the Royal Wardrobe with Lucy Worsley - BBC One

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A Sparkling Length of 18thc Gold Lace from the Massachusetts Historical Society

Susan reporting,

Earlier this month I visited the latest exhibition at one of my favorite places for research and inspiration, the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, MA. Called Fashioning the New England Family, it's a truly breathtaking exhibition, featuring clothing, accessories, textiles, and embroidery worn and made by New Englanders.

The majority of the pieces are drawn from the MHS collections, and many have never before or only rarely been seen by the public. There's so much here: Abigail Adams's copper-colored silk gown (on loan from the Adams Historical Park); Thomas Hancock's walking stick crowned by a clenched ivory fist; Governor John Leverett's 17thc buff coat worn to fight under Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War; Rachael Hartwell's light-as-air 1890s wedding dress. The history of the wearers is woven into each piece, and the presentation is thoughtful and beautifully displayed. The exhibition is free to the public, and runs through April 6, 2019. See here for more information.

I'll be featuring highlights from the exhibition in upcoming blog posts, and I'm starting with one of the smaller items. It's also among the most stunning. Some time during the mid-18thc, this length (unfolded, it measures 283 cm x 5 cm) of gold wire bobbin lace was made in Europe. Whether bought by an individual there or imported to the American colonies to be sold in a shop here, the lace was purchased and carefully wrapped in blue paper with the price written in iron gall ink. For whatever reason, the lace was never used, but instead put away in its original paper wrapping.

Metallic lace was a costly and luxurious trim, designed to sparkle in 18thc candlelit rooms. It could be used to adorn a woman's gown or a man's waistcoat, or even the cap of a special baby. (I immediately thought of the similar gold bobbin lace that was incorporated in this mat embroidered c1780 by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton.) Metallic lace was usually a blend of gold and silver or other metals, and over time and wear often tarnished and lost its shine.

But this particular length of lace remains as bright as new, the intricate woven gold glowing against the blue paper.  When the lace was given to the MHS, it was accompanied by a handwritten note from Susan Holmes Upham (1804-1877): "Gold lace given me with other old-fashioned things by my mother." It must indeed have been an old-fashioned curiosity by the mid-19thc. Today it's a sparkling link through the centuries to the shop of the now-forgotten milliner or mantua-maker who made the sale, tallied the price, and wrapped the lace, and the (I hope!) satisfied customer who carried the new purchase home.

Many thanks to Anne Bentley and Kimberly Alexander for giving me a special tour of the exhibition, and for including me in the planning from the earliest stages. 

The book that accompanies the exhibition - generously illustrated with many full-color photographs - is being published by the University of Virginia Press. It can be pre-ordered here.

Gold Wire Bobbin Lace, mid-18thc, European. Massachusetts Historical Society. 
Photographs courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society.

Fashions for November 1913

Dresses November 1913

Loretta reports:

Let's read over the shoulder of a lady in 1913 who's just picked up the latest copy of Ladies Home Journal.

  What I See on Fifth Avenue by Alice Long: With Drawings by Jessie Gillespie.

“From the top of one of those lumbering, top-heavy busses that wheeze ponderously along Fifth Avenue is really the best place to get a good view, not alone of the shops that line the avenue, but also of the kaleidoscopic mass of color formed by the hurrying streams of woman shoppers. And if you are looking for what is new in fashion you are just as apt to see it on some of these same shoppers, many of whom have names that are household words because of their prominence socially or because of the financial rating of their men folks, as in even the most exclusive shops...

“I SPENT several days going through the more important Fifth Avenue shops and dressmaking places, and of one thing I am convinced: The fashionable silhouette demands fullness at the hips and a narrowing in at the foot; and be it peplum or tunic—call it what you please—some sort of flounce arrangement must be shown on the skirt of a fussy dress anywhere between the waistline and the feet. A strikingly pretty model of this sort of composite type formed the dress of one of the season’s débutantes, and was intended for a luncheon to be given in her honor. It was of a dull watermelon pink shade of silk crepe, with a. blouse of pale lilac chiffon over flesh-colored malines.* The Medici frill is wired with fine silk wire, so fine as to be invisible, and the plaited tunic, which is of the lilac chiffon, is also wired on the edge, so that it stands out the tiniest little bit.—Ladies’ Home Journal, Volume 30, November 1913 

 The whole article is an interesting read: the color red's popularity, the puzzle of wearing summer weight fashion in November and heavy fabrics in summer, etc.

*Malines in this context appears to refer to "Malines Lace—Bobbin lace with sprigs or dots outlined with a heavier cordonnet over a hexagonal or round mesh ground.  It is made in one piece of white flax thread."—Dictionary of Textiles, Harmuth 1915. Aka Mechlin Lace. You can read a history of lace here.

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Friday Video: The Two-Handkerchief Bra, 1921

Courtesy Library of Congress

Loretta reports:

In the early days of the brassiere, two handkerchiefs would do, apparently.  Here's how to turn them into an undergarment.

Illustration Where there's smoke there's fire, Russell Patterson, 1920s. Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

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.

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The Dickey, or, Abominable False Front

August 1873 Men's Fashions

Loretta reports:

The author of this 1876 guide to men’s dress did not mince words when it came to false shirt fronts. One can only imagine what he'd have to say about, oh, man buns or low-hanging trousers.

~~~

BEAU BRUMMEL said, “A gentleman should show clean linen, and plenty of it.” The first part of this sentence is strictly true, the second less so. There is no need, having a clean shirt on, to publish the fact, or to lead the public to infer you wear it as a disguise by undue exhibition of it. “Virtue is its own reward :” so the assumption of clean underclothing generally, even if its light be kept beneath a bushel, should afford the wearer the same pleasure as if ostentatiously paraded. When I see a man placarding his chest with a wide expanse of lawn, and exhibiting an unnecessary amount of cuffs, I infer he has got on neither a clean nor white shirt. The surmise generally proves correct.

Interlined Shirt Bosoms 1912

I often see in haberdashers' shops an exaggerated collar and lapel in one, designed to cover manly bosom. The commercial name of this impious fraud is called a Dickey. This felonious impostor must be made away with. No one with any self-respect can wear a dickey. A man clad in such an unmitigated imposition is a whited sepulchre of the very blackest type. If the reader knows any so depraved even to possess one, let him persuade the wretched man to pause, ere too late, in his headlong career—to burn the spurious rag, and he can then exclaim, with regenerated heart, “Richard” (not Dickey, mind) “is himself again!”
Many say, however, when this charge is brought against them, that they suffer from neuralgia, lumbago, and tic-douloureux and ... various other ailments ... Well, what excuse is this? I do not prohibit flannel —wear an under flannel shirt—two if you like; but you must cover it with an entire white shirt, not an aliquot part of it. If hypocrisy be the homage which vice pays to virtue, then the assumption of dickey is a sneaking admission of the necessity for showing clean linen, and a discreditable way of making a sham composition with the subject.
— The Gentleman's Art of Dressing with Economy. By a Lounger at the Clubs (1876)

The Lounger's disapproval did not lead to the rapid extinction of the dickey. On the contrary, it lived on into the 20th century, and it isn't dead yet.

Images: August 1873 Men’s Fashions, from the Gentleman's Magazine of Fashion, via Google Books.
Interlined Shirt Bosoms (1912), and Arrow Donchester shirt 1915, courtesy New York Public Library.

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Fashions for October 1902

October 1902 Day Costume

Loretta reports:

The Delineator is quite a bit different from the ladies’ magazines I’ve used for earlier time periods. The World of Fashion, La Belle Assemblée, and other 19th century periodicals were aimed at upper class women. Those magazines described the fashions, but didn’t explain how to make them, because their audience’s clothes were made by dressmakers.

The Delineator’s market is altogether different. They're selling patterns to women who make at least some of their own and their family’s clothes. My guess is that some dressmakers (those outside the high fashion realms) might have found it useful, too, especially regarding latest trends. As a result, we get a wealth of detail about the clothes and their construction—valuable especially for writers setting stories in this time period or those simply interested in post-Victorian fashion.

Like other ladies’ magazine of the 1800s, 1900s, and today, though, the Delineator offers a summary of the latest trends in the introduction to their long fashion section. You can read about what’s hot for October 1902 here.  A few years later, the silhouette changed quite a bit, as I pointed out in this post.

October 1902 Tea or Reception Dress

Because the descriptions are so long, I’m not going to attempt to clip them, but will instead provide links. Day Costume Description here. Tea gowns description here (scroll down to Figures 151G and 152G.


Images via Hathi Trust.

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Friday Video: Recreating Madame Récamier's Coiffure

Chinard, Mme Récamier

Loretta reports:

I have mentioned Madame Récamier before, mainly in connection with furniture (here and here). She is quite well known among Regency/Napoleonic era aficionados, both for her portraits and her salon.

The Gérard and David portraits of her will be familiar to many. However, being mainly interested in the chaise longue, I hadn’t really noticed the marble bust by Joseph Chirard, until I came upon Janet Stephens’s video. Ms Stephens has posted several YouTube videos explaining Greek and Roman hair styles, which in turn help us get a better sense of the powerful influence of Greek and Roman statuary on this period of fashion in Europe and America.

Video by Janet Stephens: Authentic Napoleonic Hairstyle: MadameRecamier

Image: Bust of Juliette Récamier by Joseph Chinard, in "Musée des Beaux-arts" of Lyon (France), photo by Philippe Alès, Creative Commons license.
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From the Archives: A Beautiful (and Romantic) 18th c. Man's Shirt

Susan reporting,

Today I'm reposting one of the breathtaking examples of needlework from The Diligent Needle: Instrument of Profit, Pleasure, & Ornament, a 2014 exhibition at Winterthur Museum. 

Hung against a dark wall, this 18th c. man's linen shirt was almost sculptural in its pristine perfection. I've written other posts about similar shirts here and here, so I won't repeat how they're made, how often they're laundered, or who wore them.

So why write about another one here (except, of course, because it's so stunningly beautiful)? While most men of every class purchased shirts made by tailors (remember that at this time, the primary cost of any garment lay in the fabric, not the labor), shirts were one of the few garments that wives and mothers could, and did, make at home. The economical geometry of 18th c. shirts made them comparatively easy to cut out and sew, and the voluminous shape did away with any challenging issues of fitting. The simple construction focused the attention on the stitching, and an accomplished seamstress could display her gifts for perfect tiny stitches and neat hems, left. Fancy needlework was admired, but skillful plain sewing like this was almost considered a wifely virtue.

Shirts were also intimate garments, worn next to the skin, and for most men at this time who still had not adopted the new-ish fashion for underdrawers, the tails of shirts also served as underwear. All of these reasons made a well-stitched shirt a popular gift from a bride or newlywed wife to her husband, and they are often mentioned in letters and diaries of the time. A new wife could happily clothe her husband with her own labors and romantically think of him with every stitch, while he in turn would also be proud to wear a shirt that showed his new wife was accomplished and frugal.

Although the curators at Winterthur don't know either who made or wore this shirt, their guess is that it was one of these "newlywed" shirts. Not only does its sparkling condition hint at a shirt that was perhaps put aside as a keepsake, but the stitcher also added a small, sentimental touch: at the bottom of the neck-opening, serving as a reinforcement, is a small appliqued heart, right. Awww....

Above: Shirt, maker unknown, linen, probably made in America, c1790-1820. Winterthur Museum.
Photographs © 2014 by Susan Holloway Scott.

Friday Video: A Young Dutch Woman Dresses for Day in 17thc Delft

Susan reporting,

Here's the latest lovely fashion history video from our friends at Crow's Eye Productions. The layers and layers of clothing worn by an elite Dutch woman in the 17thc served not only to display her family's wealth, but also kept her warm in a damp, unheated house. I found myself thinking of the Dutch immigrants in New Amsterdam (later to become New York City) at the same time, and how welcome those layers must have been in the New World, too.

There's also a wonderful surprise ending to this video that delighted the nerdy-history-girl-art-historian in me. Wait for it!

Many thanks to costume historian Pauline Loven and director Nick Loven of Crow's Eye Productions for sharing their work with us.

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Fashions for Sometime in 1896

Walking Dresses 1896

Loretta reports:

My searches online produced a wealth of 1890s fashion plates. Unfortunately, nobody ever saved the fashion descriptions. However, what turned up in the Met collections is, despite the lack of documentation, unexpectedly enlightening.There are descriptions, in French, which I leave you to translate. But what’s unusual about these images is that they appear to be colorized photographs: in other words, these aren’t the stylized images that portray anatomically impossible women’s bodies (please compare and contrast with images in my post of October 2016). I imagine some 19th century version of photoshopping went on, but at least these offer a much better sense of the clothing.

La Mode Pratique was a lovely magazine. If you’re interested in 1880s-1920s French fashion, you might want to look at this blog for samples of the pages. At the bottom of the page are links to more posts about the magazine.

Evening Dress 1896

Images courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Dresses 1896

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Woman Reads, Wearing a Bonnet Indoors—Really?

Blacklock, A Quiet Read

Loretta reports:

A short time ago, this image appeared on social media, with a question about women wearing hats indoors while reading. This sort of thing leads to my putting on my deerstalker hat and sticking the pipe in my mouth—but not the needle in my arm—and sleuthing.

My collection of historical dress images includes a goodly number of early 19th century ones in which women are indoors, reading, wearing a headdress. They are usually in morning dress, and the headgear is a cap. Some caps are so elaborate, though, that at first glance they seem to be hats, like the English lace cap on the left in this image.

This fashion plate, of a promenade dress, definitely shows a hat (straw), and the woman is holding a book open. Since she’s wearing a rosary and cross,  she could be in church, and that could be a prayer book she’s holding. Or not. We often see Regency-era fashion plates of women wearing crosses with evening dress: It’s jewelry.

However, the painting in question is not from the Regency era. It comes from the late 19th/early 20th century, during a period of Regency nostalgia. In the early 1800s, Jane Austen was liked in some quarters, dismissed in others, but essentially no big deal. It wasn’t until the 1880s that she became a rock star. At this time editions of her books illustrated by the likes of Hugh Thomson and C.E. Brock begin to appear, and we start to see a Regency revival in painting. The image in question is from this Regency revival/nostalgia era, when artists like Edmund Blair Leighton, Frederick Morgan, Frédéric Soulacroix, Giovanni Boldinim and many others created their versions of the Regency (and Empire) eras.

Kennington, Lady Reading by a Window c 1900

Looking into this later time period offered a little more enlightenment. William Kay Blacklock’s painting is dated circa 1900. In the late 1800s/early 1900s, I did find a few images of women reading, indoors, wearing hats, like this one by Frederick Carl Frieseke, and this one by James Guthrie.

In conclusion, I can’t altogether explain it, but the image might be historically inaccurate only for the era it’s conveying. Or maybe not. Maybe the lady is sitting in the dentist’s office, waiting her turn. Or maybe she's waiting for her boyfriend to come and collect her for a drive in Hyde Park. Or maybe, as author Caroline Linden suggested, "She's getting ready to go out but just wants to finish one last chapter..." What do you think?




If you've seen other images with this reading-indoors-wearing-a-hat theme, please feel free to share.


My thanks to Lillian Marek for sending me on this very interesting and educational investigation!

Images: William Kay Blacklock, A Quiet Read, possibly circa 1900; Thomas Benjamin Kennington, Lady Reading by a Window; Gandalf’s Gallery via Wikipedia.

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Friday Video: Roller Skating in a Corset and Bustle

Loretta reports:

Many readers express dismay at the clothing of the post-Regency 19th century, and how restrictive it seems. There's an assumption that women couldn't do much while wearing corsets and layer upon layer of undergarments. Dress historians and re-enactors, however, have shown us otherwise. For example, some years ago I attended a talk by Astrida Schaeffer, during which she showed photos of Victorian women (whose clothing made it clear they were wearing corsets—not to mention all the other layers) performing various outdoor activities.

My post the other day about bustles drew more of the dismayed comments on social media, e.g., women couldn't do any work in these clothes. And so, naturally, I hunted for evidence that women did not spend all their time lying on sofas in a swoon. I think this video, of a lady skating while wearing a corset and a bustle and the elaborate dress of what seems to be the 1880s, offers a good demonstration. Gina White's even wearing Victorian-era roller skates, which apparently aren't easy to maneuver.

Video:

Roller skating in a bustle dress and a corset Part 1, Beauty from Ashes, Gina White

Image above left is a still from the video.

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The Bustle in the Mid-1880s

Bustle dress ca 1885

Loretta reports:

A reader’s comment on my 1885 fashion post, regarding the weight of this type of fashion, sent me in search of more than my vague guess at weight and (in)convenience. While 19th C ladies wore numerous undergarments, I’m focusing on the bustle, since emphasis on the booty is one of the most striking features of the year’s fashions.


From C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington’s The History of Underclothes, I learned that “the name “bustle” was, in the 1880s, considered a little coarse. ‘Tournure’ or ‘dress improver’ was a more ladylike appendage to the lower back.”

The bustle, according to the Cunningtons, “as a separate article from the petticoat with back flouncing, began to return in 1883, in a short form for the walking dress and longer for the evening. By the next year it was either attached to the bodice or the petticoat, or it might be in the form of crescentic steels introduced into the back of the dress itself. By 1885 a horsehair pad, some six inches square and often called a ‘mattress’ was added; the American kind, of wire—‘which answers the purpose much better; was but one of many other varieties. Unlike that used in the 1870s, the bustle of the 1880’s produced a prominence almost at right angles so that it was popularly declared a tea-tray could be comfortably rested on it.”

This image shows the bustles sans accompanying undergarments.

The image at right, also from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gives a better idea of the underpinnings. The bustle is described as “Cotton twill, cotton-braid-covered-steel, and cotton-braid cord.”

1885 undergarments

Here is an 1885 cotton twill and wire bustle from about 1885. This bustle shows a slightly different approach, from about the same time. At the V&A is this bustle pad from France. The item appears in Eleri Lynn's Underwear: Fashion in Detail (2014) with this commentary: “By 1880 the bustle had all but disappeared, making a re-emergence around 1883. However, instead of the low drapery of the mid to late 1870s, the new style was sharp and angular, jutting out at right angles to the body. This square bustle pad is made from glazed calico trimmed with silk cord, and fastened with a waist tape. It is stuffed to a very solid shape with straw and would have been worn with several petticoats.” The book, which I recommend, also shows the steel bustle in closeup.

Given the images and the vast amounts of trimmings on the clothing itself, I’m now inclined to agree with the reader that this fashion would be rather heavy and awkward—for us. The ladies, I assume, would have been accustomed, and mightn't have thought of their clothing in that way.

Images: Woman’s 2-piece silk bustle dress, France, c. 1885, and Bustle and undergarments c 1885, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Costume and Textiles Department.

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. And, just so you know, if you order a book through one of my posts, I might get a small share of the sale.

Fashions for August 1885

August 1885 fashions

Loretta reports:

C. Willett Cunnington, in English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteen Century, expresses no affection for the fashions of this period. “To appreciate the Bustle Era of the ‘80’s, now at its height, it is necessary to recognize that it was accepted as an alternative to the greater horror of the crinoline. The latter would have made the tailor-made walking dress and impossibility whereas with this excrescence behind progress forward was still possible.”

In introducing us to the 1880s, he writes, “The fashions of the ‘80’s were more remote than those of any other decade from modern standards of taste.” According to him, “The principle was strict, that beauty should make no passionate appeal. The epoch was, above all others, anti-anatomical.”

Not quite the way I see it, but every era has its own interpretation of fashion, and we need to put this fashion historian’s observations in the context of his time. The book was published in 1937.

Fashion plates are from the August 1885 issue of The London and Paris Ladies' Magazine of Fashion, which included back views of the dresses, as you see.

Fashion plate description

Fashion plate description cont'd

Reverse of fashions

Broché: woven with a raised figure; brocade
Crepon: a heavy crepe fabric with lengthwise crinkles
Surah: a soft, twilled silk or rayon fabric

I apologize for the small, blurry description images, and recommend you click on the links for better pictures.
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. And, just so you know, if you order a book through one of my posts, I might get a small share of the sale.

The Long-Lost Slippers of Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, Princess of Sulmona, 1820

Susan reports,

It's a known fact that Loretta and I have a Thing for shoes (it says so right up there, under the blog's title.) When we come across shoes that also have a history - like these or these - we're in heaven. And when there may be a mysterious romance tossed in with the history – well, we can't ask for more, can we?

Dating from the 1820s, the leather slippers, trimmed with now-faded silk, left, were recently "rediscovered" in the King's Museum, University of Aberdeen. As occasionally happens in even the best of collections, these shoes had been long ago tucked away and forgotten, until an enterprising curatorial assistant, Louise Wilkie, came across them, and researched their background to be able to identify them as they prize they are.

The slippers have been identified as having belonged to Pauline Bonaparte Borghese (1780-1825), below right, Princess of Sulmona and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte. One clue was an old engraving on the shoes' soles: "Pauline, Rome Jan 20 1824." Another was the diminutive size of the shoes themselves, equivalent to a UK child's size 2; Pauline was famously known to have very small feet.

But Ms. Wilkie discovered a much stronger connection. The shoes were included in a collection of belongings of Robert Wilson (1787-1871.) Born in Banffshire, Scotland, Wilson served for several years as a ship's surgeon with the Honorable East India Company. The experience quelled his interest in medicine, but made him into an intrepid traveller. His journeys took him throughout Europe as well as to Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and India - all the more extraordinary given the unsettled times in which he was travelled.

While visiting Italy in 1820, he met and formed a close friendship with Pauline. Exactly how close they became remains a tantalizing mystery, even given Pauline's reputation for sexual adventures with many lovers. Still, entries like this one in Wilson's diary hint at their intimacy: "I passed a fortnight in the vicinity of Pisa with the Princess Borghese in a state of almost perfect seclusion, and afterwards accompanied her to the Baths of Lucca."

Perhaps the Princess found the straight-forward Scotsman a refreshing change from her more exotic lovers. Perhaps they simply were friends, and no more. But she did give him many gifts, including these slippers, as mementos – mementos that he carefully packed away and saved for the remainder of his long life, and bequeathed with his papers to the university at his death.

Above left: Slippers belonging to Pauline Borghese, King's Museum, University of Aberdeen.
Bottom right: Princess Pauline Borghese, by Robert Lefevre, c. 1808. Palace of Versailles.

From the Archives: What Every Woman Should Know About Wearing Hoop Skirts - in 1938

Susan reporting,

Fashion repeats itself, and supporting skirts from beneath - whether by a farthingale, hoops, or a crinoline, depending on the century - is a style that keeps coming back. We've featured it here on the blog many times, including here and here.

But until I came across this feature from a 1938 Fall Fashion issue of Life Magazine, I'd no idea that hoops had also had a brief resurgence for evening wear in the late 1930s, an era that I'd always thought was defined by slinky, body-conscious bias-cut gowns.

The editorial copy in Life describing this "new" fashion in dance frocks, above left, is amazingly snarky, even for fashion reporting, including this gem: "American women, notoriously hippy, are expected to pounce upon the bell-shaped silhouette. The nipped-in waist, the wide-spreading skirt, are perfect camouflage for excess pounds below the waist...." And this was from a mainstream American magazine!

I also loved how these small, sarcastic cartoons that illustrate the perils of wearing a hoopskirt in the 1930s were so similar to the challenges facing the Victorian ladies in their crinolines, as well as this poor 18th c. lady betrayed by her hoops. It made me think of what a 2018 fashionista would face if the cycle of fashion brings back hoops again: imagine wrestling the things through a modern airport security check, or onto a stool at Starbucks. But you never know....

Click here to read the entire feature on Fall Fashion, available online courtesy of GoogleBooks - including what must have been a pretty racy photoshoot of a model in a revealing black hoop petticoat and corset.

Top: "A hoop hangs under this black taffeta dress with blue ruchings", photo from Life Magazine, Sept. 5, 1938.
Below: "What Every Girl Should Know About Wearing Hoopskirts", illustrations from Life Magazine, Sept. 5, 1938.

Friday Video: 18thC Working Women in Summer

Susan reporting,

Here's another short video from our friends at Crow's Eye Productions, featuring two young rural women from 18thc Britain and how they dress for their day as harvest workers. I have to admit that they don't seem to be working particularly hard, but then they'll be working from dawn to dusk, so maybe they're pacing themselves.

Thanks to producer/costume designer Pauline Loven for sharing with us!

If you received this post via email, you may be seeing an empty space or a black box where the video should be. Click here to view the video.

Fashions for July 1875

Travel & Promenade Dress July 1875

Loretta reports:

For a perspective on this month’s fashion plate, I offer a quote from Jane Ashelford’s The Art of Dress.

“A narrower silhouette appeared in 1874, introducing a sheath-like bodice which fitted over the waist and hips, thus necessitating a new style of corset. The flat effect down the front of the skirt was further enhanced by tapes inside the skirt which pulled it closer to the body. In conjunction with this tightening of the silhouette, the bustle grew smaller and was positioned lower down, where the fullness of the skirt extended into a long train.”

Travel & Promenade Dress Description

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