All posts filed under: 19th Century

Regency sandals

A while ago someone asked me about Regency sandals. Why do we see so many in fashion plates, but so few extent pairs? Well, I suspect the ratio is quite similar to most items seen in fashion plates vs. extent items. Fashion plates (and fashion magazines today) always show the most avant -garde and extreme fashion, and few ladies ever reached that level of modish dress. In addition, contemporary sources seem to indicate that wearing sandals was rather noteworthy, and maybe just a little bit scandalous, so there probably was a lot more talking about them than actually owning and wearing them. We can see the scandalousness conotations of sandals illustrated in the famous Boilly image of a rakish Incroyable meeting his female counterpart, the Merveilleuse. In her transparent dress even the radical Incroyable mistakes her for a prostitute and offers her money, while she shows a modesty not apparent in her attire and makes the sign of a cross with her fingers to indicate her shock and virtue. While they are hard to find, …

More terminology: What is a pardessus?

Published by The Dreamstress

Continuing on from my post about guimpes, I’ve been noticing all sorts of costuming words that I see, and can guess what they mean, but never properly research. My latest word is pardessus. V&E posted a gorgeous 1874 pardessus pattern that started my research. Pardessus, unglamorously enough, just means ‘overcoat’, from the French ‘passed over’. We can see the term, or variants of it, used in early French fashion magazines. The notes for this fashion magazine from 1814 described the garments as 1. Robe de Levantine et fichu-canezou garni en broderie. Chapeau en Gros de Naples garni dune ruche de gaze. 2. Canezou de velours. Jape de reps garnie en rouleaux. Chapeau en velours epingle garni de plumes d’Autruche. 3. Par-dessus four-6 en merinos garni de chinchilla. Toque de velours plein garni de roses. The term pardessus gained popularity in English in the 1840s as a term to describe a mantle, along with pelisses, paletots, camails, and crespins. Mentions of pardessus are most common in English fashion magazines in the ’40s & ’50s, and American …

Spring shoes

Published by The Dreamstress

Spring has come to New Zealand. In fact, it’s almost summer. My spring flowers are almost finished (and I managed to not inflict a single post with macro images of them on you this year), and I heard the first cicada of the year last week. To celebrate, here are a rainbow of pretty, pastel-y, spring-y shoes. There are pink ones: And purple ones: And green ones: And blue ones: And yellow ones: And some that have a whole garden of colours: