All posts filed under: Textiles & Costume

Terminology: When a corsage wasn’t flowers

Today a corsage is a small bouquet of flowers pinned to your bodice or worn on your wrist, but that hasn’t always been what a corsage is.  Corsage used to be a term for a bodice. Via VintageVictorian.com While a small bouquet of flowers and a blouse may seem like very different things, the terms are actually related.  Women used to gather a small nosegay of flowers to wear on their bodice, or their gentlemen admirers would send them small bouquets to be worn to an event.  These nosegays were called ‘corsages’ (basically a shortening of ‘corsage bouquet’) because they were specifically meant to be worn on a woman’s corsage. In the same way, men would wear flowers in their buttonholes, and these were (and still are, in the UK and a few other places) called ‘buttonholes’ though the name didn’t stick as well in America, and today they are more likely to call them boutonnieres (which is just French for buttonhole). The term ‘corsage’ comes from the French cors, or body, and thus has …

A romance of gloves

A long time ago, when I posted about the collective nouns for costuming I neglected to think of a collective noun for gloves. Surely though, a collection of gloves must be a romance of gloves. Is anything more romantic than a pair of vintage gloves?  Slightly worn and shaped to the hands of the wearer, redolent with the memories of the events they were worn to, the hands that held them as they whirled round the room in a dance, the personages they met and shook gloves with, the memorable moments that accrued the slight stains and soil marks. A fan is a wonderful, beautiful thing, but a glove…ah…a glove was worn next to the skin, and touched the skin of others.  It felt and caressed and gripped and saw everything.  A glove is a personality. The wonderful, fabulous Elise, of all those gorgeous vintage dresses and capes, found another beautiful collection to send me: her great-grandmothers gloves.  She suggested I might want to cut them up, but I only do that to very damaged, …

Hats for the woman of 50, 1911

This article from the Girl’s Own Paper, Dec 1911, just cracks me up.  How could it not! I’m sure the “Looking good at any age” and “Dressing for your age” articles in modern fashion magazines will be equally hilarious, if not more so, in a century Clearly the hat fashion for ‘mature’ women in 1911 was a large, square turban-toque style. I wonder exactly what made these suitable for a woman of 50 (and presumable onward, based on the mention of ‘elderly’ in one caption).  Was it just about the shape being considered properly staid, conservative and modest?  Or was the shape thought to be more flattering? Certainly these hats all match the look that Queen Mary was famous for in the latter half of her life.  And who was a better guide to respectable taste than the Queen? What do you think?  As a lady of 50 would you wear those hats?  Does the whole presentation of the article amuse you just a little?  And which is your favourite?  (Bags on the toque in …