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Kia ora from Sweden!

I’m in Europe! Starting with Sweden!

I cut down on flying except for family back in 2018 due to climate change, so I never thought I’d make it to Europe. The original impetus for my visit is not a happy one, but I’m making joy out of tragedy. I’m also making the most out of the long flight across the world, and getting a nice detailed look at four spots in four countries as long as I’m here.

First stop: Sweden! The wonderful Elisa of Isis Wardrobe (I learned on this trip that Isis is a childhood nickname because a young relative struggled to pronounce Elisa, and has nothing to do with the Egyptian goddess in her case) offered to host me in Stockholm.

I’ve known Elisa through the historical costuming internet for at least 15 years now – back in the days when the community was based on message boards! We really got to know each other when she helped moderate the Historical Sew Fortnightly FB group for a couple of years.

I’ve always admired Elisa’s detailed research and her approach to costuming. It’s thoughtful and thorough, based on documented examples but always open and willing to accept new evidence and finds. Much of Elisa’s 18thc costuming is based on Swedish examples. It’s wonderful to see costuming of this era done in a style other than French, British, and the Americas. She also does amazing hair and makeup research, and beautiful early 20th century costuming, and great vintage everyday clothes.

Through Elisa I was introduced to the fantastic Swedish costume collections and picked up a smattering of Swedish costuming terms by painstakingly working my way through museum databases with the help of google translate (which has gotten a lot better but was pretty rough in the early days).

Seeing any of the things in person seemed entirely implausible, but here I am!

Costuming things will come later: we started out the trip with a deliciously restful stop in a summer house out in the archipelago of islands east of Stockholm. We walked along the coast, wandered through the woods, and went swimming in the delightful brackish waters of the Baltic Sea. I’m going to dream of swimming in that sea on every hot day for years to come…

 

I was extremely excited to see a red squirrel (people from Hawai’i and New Zealand are obsessed with squirrels, and I’d only seen grey American ones) running along the traditional Swedish fence (pictured below, sadly without a squirrel on it) and hurling itself through the air to pull down a hanging branch of a wild rasberry bush so it could eat the berries, and to find moose tracks (with a calf!) going right past the summer house.

I was equally delighted to discover you can just walk into the woods in any direction and the ground will be covered in low blueberry bushes. It’s like a fairytale!

And that the Swedish name for these attractive but inedible berries is ‘Troll Elderberries’:

We went to see the archipelago museum (that will get a whole post) and to Djuro island (redundant in Swedish because O means island!) to see a beautiful wooden 17th century church.

Djuro Kyrka Sweden 2023 thedreamstress.com

The church is the oldest building on the island, and was, up until that point, the oldest building I’d ever seen. All the other buildings on the island were burned by the Russians in the early 18th century during one of the wars between Sweden and Russia, but the church was spared.

You’ll notice two ships hanging from the ceiling.  Kyrka near the sea in Sweden always have them: gifts from the local fishing community to ensure safety on the sea.

Near the church was the bell tower, under restoration:

And a folly, also under restoration.  Notice the bat house on the tree.

Djuro Kyrka Sweden 2023 thedreamstress.com

I love little bits of history like Djuro Kyrka. It’s not on any list of the must-do things on a trip to Sweden, but it’s a beautiful look into local history.

I also learned that the island is all pine forest now, but before the 18th century it was oak.  The oak trees were cut down to build warships.

Sweden 2023 thedreamstress.com

And mentioning Swedish warships probably nicely foreshadows what my next Sweden post will be about…

Djuro Kyrka Sweden 2023 thedreamstress.com

 

Dress, 1900-1909 (1906-9), warp printed silk, 'Landum Minneapolis', Goldstein Museum of Design, 006.043.003

Rate the Dress: summery chiné silks 1906-9

This week’s Rate the Dress is a little delayed because I was busy with all the exciting stuff for the Persis Corset launch.

Last week: an 1840’s dress with stripes and rosettes

Your ratings the dress from ranged from generally favourable but not wildly enthusiastic, to decidedly meh.  As for the rosettes though?  Everyone was pretty firmly in agreement that they had to go!

Daniel did point out that if the dress was paired with a pelerine with matching rosettes it would look much more balanced, which is absolutely true.

The Total: 7 out of 10

Just scraping in at a 7 (it was 6.95, but I round up).

This week: a 1906-9 formal day dress in warp printed silk

To celebrate the launch of the Persis Corset, this week’s Rate the Dress is something that might have been worn over a corset just like the Persis:

The pale colours and floral pattern of this formal day dress suggest it was a spring or summer gown – although hopefully not for a very hot day!

Warp printed silks were very fashionable in the late Victorian era and first two decades of the 20th century.  Their soft, blurred patterning worked well with the extremely frilly, feminine aesthetic, and the pattern gave a nod back to 18th century fashion, which was used as a point of inspiration for Edwardian fashion.  They were also known as chiné silks, or chiné a la branche.  I’ve blogged about this type of fabric here.

If you look closely at the fabric of this dress you can see that it has both a floral chiné pattern, and a brocaded pattern, creating a double layer of texture and colour.

The layering of textures is a classic Edwardian touch.  Look closely at the detail photo above and you can see that the edge of the berthe-inspired bodice pleating is finished with two rows of flat piping: one in eu de nil, one in pale coral.  This same detailing is repeated on the centre front of the bodice pleating.

Those same colours come up again in the rosettes that decorate the front and back of the bodice.

This dress belonged to Martha F, Harris Hynes (1882-1946), the grandmother of the donor: Julia Wallace.  The museum dates the dress to 1900-1909, but the wide shoulder berthe effect and sleeve shape of this dress were most fashionable in 1907-8.  I feel comfortable narrowing the dating to 1906-9.  Martha was 24-28 when she wore this gown: young, but likely married, not a debutante.

What do you think?  Just the thing for a new wife to create an impression of both youth and responsibility at the social events of the summer in?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A reminder about rating — feel free to be critical if you don’t like a thing, but make sure that your comments aren’t actually insulting to those who do like a garment.  Phrase criticism as your opinion, rather than a flat fact. Our different tastes are what make Rate the Dress so interesting.  It’s no fun when a comment implies that anyone who doesn’t agree with it, or who would wear a garment, is totally lacking in taste.

As usual, nothing more complicated than a .5.  I also hugely appreciate it if you only do one rating, and set it on a line at the very end of your comment.

Eaton's Fall and Winter Catalogue 1909-10

The Historical Inspiration Behind the Persis Corset

Some of the historical patterns I do for Scroop Patterns are based on one specific historical garment.  The Selina Blouse and Kilbirnie Skirt patterns, for example, started out as a single blouse and single skirt that I own, and then were expanded into extra views inspired by other patterns from the period and garments sold in catalogues.  The Rilla Corset is based on the best selling corset in NZ in the period the pattern covers.

The front page of the Scroop Patterns Persis Corset (1907-11) with line drawings of a late Edwardian corset with distinctive curved front panels scrooppatterns.com

 

The Persis Corset, on the other hand, is an amalgamation of a number of extant corsets in NZ & US collections that I was able to study, and design features taken from corsets advertised in mail order catalogues of the era.

My goal was to create a pattern with a period accurate silhouette, period accurate construction techniques, and my favourite aesthetic elements.  So the Persis doesn’t represent a specific corset, but the idea of a corset from this period.

It’s the product of almost a decade of research.  I knew I loved this era of corsetry, and that, as a transitional period between two iconic styles, it wasn’t well represented in patterns.  I also knew it’s a rather tricky era of corsetry, and I wanted to be absolutely certain of my patternmaking skills in this era before I published anything. Some of the things that ended up in the Persis were from corsets I looked at for the Rilla, but decided were too early.  Some of them are from very recent research.

Unfortunately my photo agreements for the corsets I studied in person are ‘for personal use only’, but I can share some of the other inspiration with you!

Corset advertising 1907-10

One of the huge influences for the design lines were WB corsets, particularly a number of models that were introduced in late 1907 and heavily marketed in 1908-9.

WB Corsets ad, 1909

I was able to study a Nuform corset like the one in the ad above in person, and used the design lines from the Erect Form line as inspiration.

WB Corsets ad, 1909

You can see that these have a much longer silhouette than earlier Edwardian corsets, and much more restrained curves.

Here’s how the fashionable figure was described by W.B corsets:

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, Sept 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, Sept 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, Sept 1909

W.B Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, Sept 1909

Here’s how Thompson’s Glovefit advertised and described their corsets of this period:

Thompson's Glovefit Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

Thompson’s Glovefit Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

Thompson's Glovefit Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

Thompson’s Glovefit Corsets advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, March 1909

And now, let’s contrast what we see in those advertisements with this W.B advertisement from just two years later, in 1911:

W.B Corsets advertised in The Designer, May 1911

W.B Corsets advertised in The Designer, May 1911

Notice how much slimmer the hips are?  And that the curved bottom edge has completely disappeared?

There was a moment in 1909-10 when straight hemmed corsets and curved hem corsets were sold side by side.  This is Canadian mail order company Eaton’s selection from Fall-Winter 1909-10:

Eaton's Fall and Winter Catalogue 1909-10

Eaton’s Fall and Winter Catalogue 1909-10

And then going back in time to the start of the Persis date range, here’s a Warner’s corset advertisement in which the extremely curvaceous early Edwardian silhouette is very much in evidence:

A Warner's Rustproof corset advertised in the Poverty Bay Herald, 9 April 1907

A Warner’s Rustproof corset advertised in the Poverty Bay Herald, 9 April 1907

Extant corsets

Of course, in addition to the extant corsets I studied in person, and the advertising descriptions I looked at, I also looked at corsets in museum collection and corsets that were sold on auction sites.  Even if I couldn’t see them in person they could provide valuable hints about the materials used, the boning layouts, the way corsets were trimmed, and the seaming.

I love this example.  It shows how curvaceous corsets from ca 1909 were, even as the marketing advertised the ‘straight line’ and ‘sheath’ effect.

Corset with stocking straps Madame Lemal 1909 Chicago History Museum

Corset with stocking straps Madame Lemal 1909 Chicago History Museum

This is dated ca. 1905, but I suspect it’s 1905-9

Corset, Chicago Corset Company, ca. 1905, American, cotton, metal, bone, elastic, silk Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.3124a, b

Corset, Chicago Corset Company, ca. 1905, American, cotton, metal, bone, elastic, silk Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.3124a, b

Here’s a fascinating example of a summer corset in mesh:

Corset, ca. 1906, American, Cotton, bone, metal, elastic, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.6654a, b

Corset, ca. 1906, American, Cotton, bone, metal, elastic, Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.6654a, b

This example from the Manchester Art Gallery is dated earlier, but is an excellent illustration of a non-light coloured corset of this era.  There aren’t many examples not in pale shades:

Corset, 1903-9, Manchester Art Gallery, 1954.1085

Corset, 1903-9, Manchester Art Gallery, 1954.1085

Corset, 1903-9, Manchester Art Gallery, 1954.1085

Corset, 1903-9, Manchester Art Gallery, 1954.1085

Hope you enjoyed that little peek into the inspiration behind the Persis Corset!

The Persis Pattern is 10% off until midnight Thursday 27 July, NZ time