All posts filed under: 19th Century

What size should your corset be, and how tightly should you lace it?

I get a lot of questions about corsets. Costumers ask what size they should make their corset. Consumers ask what size they should buy their corset. Those with corsets ask how tightly they should lace their corset. Finally, people ask “Isn’t that horribly painful?” The answer to that question is an emphatic “No“: not if your corset is well made, properly fitted, and properly laced. To help with the last two, this is my rough guide to corset fit and lacing. It’s not based on anything more scientific than things I’ve been told, things I’ve noticed in sewing and making corsets, and things I’ve noticed in fitting lots of models in corsets. It’s going to vary depending on the corset style, and on your body. There is no one-size-fits-all in corsets, and no one-answer-fits-all, because there is an infinite variety of bodies. These guidelines are intended to give a comfortable silhouette with a defined waist and supported bust: something that would be reasonably historically accurate for the period from 1860 to 1900. None of the …

Rate the Dress: 1890s gym suit

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I presented a very yellow, very young, very sweet 1830sish dress. As always, there were a range of opinions, but I think Daniel’s summation of the dress as “Charming and very pretty, but not really holding more than passing interest/attention” best encompasses the overall view, and the resulting rating of 6.7 out of 10. This week, in honour of the Olympics, and in honour of the only part of the Olympics I am interested in (what the athletes are wearing), I present an athletics themed garment: a ladies gym suit from the 1890s. Women’s athletics were just becoming popular in the 1890s (having spent the previous 30 years simply gaining acceptance), but women’s bodies were still considered much weaker and more fragile than men’s, so the athletics they participated in were comparatively sedate. No women were allowed to compete in the first modern Olympics in 1896 (though one did insist on running the marathon on her own the day after the men ran). Instead, women walked, rode, and did a range of gymnastics …

Rate the Dress: Sunny yellow Romance

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week some of you though the ’50s coat dress was awesome, and some of you thought it an awful, impractical mish-mash, giving it a score of 8 out of 10. It was an interesting exercise in knowledge altering perception, as before we knew what the dress was people marked it down for being in an incongruous wool fabric (it was a silk) or for having decorative buttons (they were functional). If I had been able to post all the information about the dress, and all the images of it from the get-go would you have liked it more, or less? The thing that was undeniable awesome is that Daniel managed to identify the dress as a Lacesse creation from 1955. Yay! Thank you Daniel! I’ve been looking over the last few Rate the Dresses and have noticed a real dearth of colour. Colour is fabulous, so that must be remedied. It’s a pretty well known fact that the colour I am currently obsessed with is yellow. Well, this dress is really yellow. It also …