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A Skating Holiday, 1906 (and sweet treats)

Happy holidays to everyone!

As a little fun for your holidays, here is a costume for ice skating from the Girl’s Own Paper from March ’06* (it was either a really cold March, or the fashion editor was already looking forward to next winter!)

A charming skating costume with the new full bolero coat with epaulet trimmings of heavy braid. The tunic, which is graduated upwards at the back, shows a full skirt, foot-free in length, trimmed with narrow bands of fur. The sleeve of this costume, which would do equally well for walking, is particularly neat. Rolled velvet could be substituted for fur on the skirt.

You’d certainly be cosy, but I can’t imagine it would be easy to skate in!

And, as an extra bonus, here is a page of ‘Continental Sweetmeat’ recipes from the same magazine for your delectation. If you do make one of these recipes please report back!

*Many thanks to Daniel for correctly dating this plate, as my pages are all loose and un-dated.

Rate the Dress: subtle sparkle

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week I showed you a plaid 1840s dress, and the loud pattern, amber and brown colour scheme, and uneven pattern matching failed to spark your interest and meet with approval, though the overall shape was deemed nice. The dress came in at a 6.9 out of 10.

This fortnight’s theme on The Historical Sew Fortnightly is ‘All that Glitters’ and glitzy, shiny items make for fun Rate the Dress posts. I’m really not going all-out with this one though, and have instead picked a dress with lots of shimmer – but all of it quite subtle and restrained.

Ball gown, ca. 1908, American, silk, cotton, glass, metallic thread, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.326

The Metropolitan Museum of Art calls this Regency-Revival gown a ball gown, but with its relatively high neckline, and longer sleeves, I’m not entirely convinced, and the train makes me really doubt the ball-gown claim. I suspect it was more of a dinner or reception dress. I also wonder if there is a chance that this was a half-mourning gown, though by 1908 the trend towards chic-black for its own sake was beginning to emerge (long before the Chanel advertising team laid claim to the idea of the ‘little black dress’).

Ball gown, ca. 1908, American, silk, cotton, glass, metallic thread, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.326

Despite the black, this gown is anything but dull. The white underlay (black lace or net over white was very fashionable right around 1908) lifts the dark colour, and the thousands of beads and sequins on the gown would have caught even the dim lights of older gas lighting, or the brighter glow of modern electricity.

Ball gown, ca. 1908, American, silk, cotton, glass, metallic thread, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.326

While most of the dresses sparkle is tone-on-tone black, a bit of gold and blue-green beading frames the neckline, adding colour interest (or weird contrast, depending on your take).

Ball gown, ca. 1908, American, silk, cotton, glass, metallic thread, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.326

What do you think? Just the thing to wear to a holiday do in 1908, or dark and dull?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10.

The Hepburn in Hakatere trousers

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m developing an awful habit of finishing Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges on time, and then running around like a mad chicken for two weeks before I have the opportunity to photograph them.

Case in point: my 1940s inspired ‘Hepburn in Hakatere’ trousers, for #23, the Modern History challenge.

I put the last stitch in these trousers the evening of Saturday the 14th of December, after starting them in April and abandoning them for 8 months in my PHd pile when the weather got too chilly for light cotton trousers, and I ran out of steam.

I wore them on Sunday (to great admiration and aplomb) for an end-of-year Baha’i children’s class barbecue, followed by the Wellington Sewing Bloggers it-was-supposed-to-be-a-picnic-but-the-weather-packed-in-at-the-critical-moment (and then of course fined up when it was too late to change) afternoon tea at my house.

I had intended to get photos at either or both events, but I did the running-around-like-a-chicken thing instead. Farmyard avian insanity is also what happened to the rest of the week while I wrapped up my classes for the year and got everything sorted around the house so I could head off to spend a delicious, glorious week with the wonderful Lynne (you’ve met Lynne before. She’s the source of some of my wonderful textiles, and comments on the blog regularly) before Christmas.

But I’m here in Hakatere with Lynne now, and there is nothing to do but sew and talk about textiles and take tea and wander round her garden, and it is heaven. And the wonderfully-wanderable garden is the perfect place to do photoshoots if we feel like exerting ourselves.

So I played Katherine Hepburn does Land-Girl, and Lynne played photographer, and we had great fun.

The pants are a hack of the fantastic Wearing History Smooth Sailing trousers. I’ve already customised the rise seams to fit me, as they are too short for my long rise and not-insignificant bottom, and I prefer a slightly more dropped rise anyway (and it is more period too), but this time I added pockets, a front placket zip, and changed the single inward facing pleat to double outward facing pleats, because I find them far more flattering on my figure.

The result is something that I could live in all summer long: warm enough for cooler days, but light and fluid enough for really hot days. They go with practically everything in my wardrobe, and are SO COMFORTABLE. Also, the pockets are big enough to slip my camera and keys and wallet and a lipstick in, without creating an unsightly bulge. Can you say best thing ever?

The fabric is a ecru and cream striped cotton, with a slightly ribbed effect. It has the massive virtue of being pale coloured but NOT see through, so I could be wearing hot pink with black and white polka dotted smalls for all anyone knows.

Because I was using stripes, I had fun playing with horizontals and verticals on the pockets. You may also notice that the pleats are a slightly different length – I find a longer outer pleat and shorter inner pleat minimizes the stomach and lengthens the leg.

I’m wearing the trousers with my ‘Aloha Ka Manini‘ blouse, which is well overdue for a good photoshoot because its original blog post coincided with the first episode of ‘the Canon S100 is the most poorly designed, overpriced piece of crap camera known to man’. So yay! Good photos of the blouse!

The Challenge: #23 Modern History

Fabric: 2m of ribbed ecru & ivory striped cotton from The Fabric Store in Wellington (I think it was $18pm at 40% off), and a bit of lightweight ecru cotton from my scrap pile for pockets

Pattern: I started with Wearing History’s Smooth Sailing Trousers, adjusted the fit, added pockets and a front zip, and changed the pleats. The result is a modern take on 1940s trousers.

Year: 1943 meets 2014

Notions: cotton thread, a metal zip, skirt hooks.

How historically accurate is it?: It’s a modern take on a period look, but that’s OK for this challenge.

Hours to complete: Around 8 altogether, including 3 spent trying to follow a tutorial for a placket zip which everyone has been raving about for making it so easy (why I bothered I don’t know. I’ve never found them hard) before giving up, unpicking it for the fourth time, and using the method I usually use.

First worn: Sun Dec 15th, and as many days as I could get away with since then.

Total cost: NZ$20 or so (and I think, if I’m very cunning, I have enough fabric left to make a pair of shorts from the same pattern in the same fabric).