All posts filed under: Textiles & Costume

Hallelujah textiles: A 1930s Hawaiian playsuit

Published by The Dreamstress

Do you collect vintage or historical textiles? If you do, you know there are the things on your wish list that you search for, and save up for, and eventually manage to get.  And then there are the things that are so rare, and amazing, and desirable that whenever they do show up for sale they are so ridiculously beyond your price range that it’s not possible.  Or the things that just never show up, because they were SO  rare in the first place. I tend to collect more by chance than design.  I don’t love shopping on the internet, which limits my options a lot, and I like the thrill of finding something unexpected at an op-shop or antique store.  And I like the unexpected stories that develop out of a less-planned collection. Still, there are some things that I desperately hope that one day I’ll get to love and care for and study.  My holy grails.  My ultimate wish list.  Hallelujah textiles.  I was lucky enough to be gifted an amazing quilted petticoat …

Terminology: Bodkins & Étui (and scissor terminology and lots more!)

Published by The Dreamstress

A bodkin, also known as a lacing or threading needle (and occasionally a ballpoint needle, but then it gets confused with the needles we sew knits with), is a large needle with a very large eye, and a very blunt end, used for lacing corsets, threading ribbon through lace beading, cord through casings, or any other time when you need to ‘carry’ a yarn without the chance of poking holes or sewing through something. Bodkin is also occasionally spelled bodekine,  bodikin, botkin, bodkine, and boidken. Here is how you thread a bodkin through a casing: To create a bit of confusion, the word bodkin also refers to almost the opposite tool: a sharp, pointed tool for poking holes in leather or fabric (like an awl).  And bodkin is also a decorative hairpin, particularly one that is shaped like a stiletto dagger, and a stiletto dagger is itself a  bodkin (keeping up?). A 17th century guide to the tailors tools describes a bodkin of the awl variety as: a blad or or round Pin of Iron …

Fashions for Winter 1931, from The NZ Mirror

Published by The Dreamstress

Since it’s definitely hit winter weather here in NZ I thought you might enjoy some fashion inspiration for Winter 1931. These are from the August 1931 edition of The Mirror (because, of course, August is definitely winter in NZ!) First, some rather delicious coats, as they were ‘Favoured in Paris’:   #1 is a three-quarter ensemble in checked wool, trimmed with beige astrakhan (blech). #2 is “the new collarless tailored coat in tweed jersey.’   Looks, and sounds, very wearable indeed! #3 ‘The tunic coat…in navy serge trimmed with persian lamb’ (i.e. astrakhan by another name, still blech). #4 ‘The loose bolero coat, in black velvet, worn with a tweed or checked skirt’.  So fabulous, and also so very modern – nothing new in fashion at all! And to go with your chic coats, a lovely selection of blouses: I particularly like the asymmetrical number at top left, and the lower left number with it’s cunning cross details – though  I think I’d struggle to get away will all the frills and fuss. Can you …