A few of you liked Maria Theresa’s masque frock last week, but most of you were rather lukewarm, with the main complaint being that the patterns were too busy and aggressive, and the whole thing didn’t go together. It rated a 5.9 out of 10. This week, our rate the dress is a bit toned down pattern-wise, but not colour-wise. Yep. That’s quite some colour in quite a combination. What do you think? Rate the dress on a scale of 1 to 10
Hana-Marmota asked to see 1840s corsets (or stays, as they were still called by all but the most genteel), so here are some I have found. It’s not quite the hundreds I mentioned, but that would make for a very long post! 1840s corsets/stays (see this post for more information on the history of the terms and what to call what when) are probably relatively hard to find in museum collections because the 1840s was a period of transition in styles in corsets. Many corsets that were made or worn in the 1840s are probably identified as earlier, if they follow earlier fashions and techniques, or slightly later, if they use just-introduced cuts and materials. The style of corsets that would have been on its way out in the 1840s is based on the so-called ‘longline’ corsets of the 1810s and 20s, with a solid front busk, bust gussets, hip gussets or princess seams (well, what we would come to call princess seams) and shoulder straps. The waist suppression for these corsets is fairly minimal, …
I’ve been assembling an informal catalogue of extent undergarments for my reference, and I have noticed something odd. I can’t find a single representation of an 1850s corset in a reputable online collection! OK, that’s not entirely true. There is one. At the Met. But it looks like this: What the heck is that!?!? It doesn’t look like any other corset, anywhere, of any period. It’s got some 1830s-40s elements (the bust insets), but otherwise it looks like a weird variant of a 1790s corset, with some stuff never seen on any other corset before or after, like the folk embroidery. It’s interesting, for sure, but definitely a fashion anomaly. So where are the 1850s corsets? You know, the ones normal people wore? The ones advertised in fashion magazines? The ones made by professional corset makers? The ones that (presumably), would transition between the longer, straped, corsets of the 1830s/40s, and the strapless, short corsets of the 1860s. Is there some odd reason that no 1850s corsets survived? Or have museum’s dated their corsets …
