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Rate the Dress: A visit to Paris, ca 1890

Last week I showed you a luxurious silk frock inspired by simple folk embroidery.  The scores were all over the place: mad love, complete revulsion.  Quite a few of you expressed doubt that it would look good on most women, which didn’t help  its score.  Overall, the dress came in at 6.9 out of 10 – very close to the 7 that was the most commonly given score.

This week, we’re leaving peasant chic behind, and going very upscale: Paris couturier fashions in the 1890s.  It’s not quite Worth, but this gown reflects the decadence of late 19th fashion that he helped to inspire,  and the cache that his work lent to Parisian fashions.

This gown was purchased by American heiress Cara Leland (nee Rogers) Broughton, either  on  a European tour just before her first marriage, or after she was widowed a year later in 1891, but  before she married (only slightly) upper class Englishman, Urban H Broughton in 1895.  His work as an MP and during WWI led to Cara being given the title of Lady Fairhaven after his death, meaning that Cara is sometimes  used  as an example of a Dollar Princess or a Buccaneer (though only in a fast and loose usage of the terms,  I would contend).

While purchased by Cara, the dress may have been worn  by her older sister Anne.  The restrained black and white colour scheme  means it is possible that the gown was used for the later stages of mourning by Cara, or by Anne, who would have had a much shorter, more relaxed mourning period for her brother-in-law (or either one  could have been in morning for another family member).

While the colour scheme is restrained, the rest of the dress is anything but.  There are lines of lace, ribbon, and bows.  Layers of light frothy cloth and lace.  Texture upon texture.

The entire dress is  quite muted and diffused, until you get to  the unexpectedly bold stripes of the back skirt panel.

The more you look at the dress, the more details there are to find: the way the lines of ribbon keep the tulle flat over the hips, allowing it to escape in gathers below.  The unexpected asymmetry of a few lines of lace on one side of the black and white striped panel.

What do you think of the dress?  Is it an interesting way to do a very simple colour scheme, perhaps for mourning?  Is it the garish vulgarity of nouveau riche that the term ‘Dollar Princess’ usually implied (Cara’s family had been reasonably prominent for generations, so nouveau riche isn’t quite accurate).  Does it say ‘widow seeking exciting new husband!’ or ‘woman with a more interesting story than meets the eye’?

Rate the Dress on a Scale of 1 to 10

A gentleman’s handkerchief (or, the most pitiful HSF item I will make all year)

I have finally finishes an item for the HSF Gentlemen challenge (well, actually I finished it on Wed the 3rd), but I have very ambivalent feelings about counting it.

This is my hand sewn, 16th century blackwork embroidered linen handkerchief:

Embroidered handkerchief thedreamstress.com

Only it isn’t.

Why not?  And why am I so hesitant to include it?

Because it is completely and utterly historically inaccurate.

Yes, it’s linen.  And it’s handsewn. And the embroidery uses period stitches, and a motif taken from a period source.  And the lace isn’t too bad as a modern approximation of a late Renaissance lace.

Embroidered handkerchief thedreamstress.com

The handkerchief is, in fact, the perfect example of how you can use period materials, and period techniques, and period inspiration, but end up with something that is just a terrible, un-historical pastiche.

The problem is that I depended on memory rather than checking my sources.  I knew that there were numerous 16th century portraits that show women holding handkerchiefs, some plain, some with blackwork, some with lace (this seems to be most common in Spanish portraits).  I thought I had also seen portraits depicting men holding handkerchiefs.

I thought a handkerchief would be a nice unisex item, and to further masculine-ise mine I picked a traditionally masculine motif: oak leaves (OK, so the really masculine part is the acorn, but I preferred to keep the reference subtle rather than blatant).  Oak leaves are also a nice play on my name,  and every Renaissance artist loves a good name pun.

I found myself with a couple of hours, some spare linen, a print out of some 17th century  blackwork motifs and no access to other sources (it’s a long story).  So I cut out a linen square,  modified a motif to fit my vision, embroidered away, hemmed it, and came home and added the lace, and THEN looked at my sources.

This is when I realised that:

1) A closer inspection of the  portraits I thought were of men holding handkerchiefs reveals that the men are actually holding gloves.  I cannot find a single 16th century depiction of a man holding a handkerchief.

2) Because I was remembering portraits of men holding gloves, my handkerchief is really small (9″ square plus lace): the size of a glove in a man’s  hand, not the size of a 16th century handkerchief based on their size in portraits of women (more like 16″ -18″ square).

3) There don’t seem to be any depictions of handkerchiefs with single blackwork motifs in one corner, instead of full blackwork borders.

Embroidered handkerchief thedreamstress.com

So, I have a item that  may not have been used by a man at all (though logically, they probably did use handkerchiefs), is ridiculously too small for the period, and has a completely un-period application of the motif.

Handsewn?  Yes.  Linen?  Yes?  Blackwork?  Yes.  Period?  No.

The Challenge: #22 Fort-nightliers Choice (Gentlemen)

Fabric:  a 25cm square of linen

Pattern:  I used the really basic introduction to blackwork here, and adapted the oak leaf motif in the top right corner of the second page of motifs from adapted from Shorleykers 1624 A Schole-House for the Needle (the pages are clearly scans from a book.  Anyone know which one?).  Only I adapted it more.

Year:  Was meant to be from sometime  between 1560-1630

Notions:  linen thread, cotton embroidery thread, cotton lace.

How historically accurate is it?:  Let’s face it.  Not, because it wouldn’t make sense in period, despite using period fabric and techniques.

Hours to complete:  2 or 3

First worn:  Not yet.  Not sure what I’m going to do with it.  Maybe actually use it as a handkerchief!

Total cost:  Essentially free, because all the bits were left over from other projects.  At least it was cheap!

Showing off my undies in public

UPDATE:    Want to make your own knickers from my pattern?  You can now buy the Wonder Unders Pattern  (which includes a singlet camisole & slip) through my pattern line: Scroop Patterns.  Get it here!

I’ve shown a lot of photos of undergarments over the years, and even quite a few photos of me in undergarments – but they have all been historical.  So this is a bit different, and kind of weird and hard for me.

Because these are my knickers:

Making your own knickers thedreamstress.com

 

Or, at least, knickers that are made from the same pattern that I wear, in the same way as the ones I wear.  As of this photo/post, these ones haven’t been worn, and may never be – they are just test pairs!

Yep.  I’ve joined the making your own knickers club.

It makes sense – it fits with my whole life and sewing philosophy.  I want to wear things that are well made, well fitted, and from quality materials.  I’m trying to live and shop  within a community: keeping my money and interactions connected to people and businesses that give back to the community.  I don’t like giving my money to faceless businesses that are focused on a profit line, not a people line.  I don’t want my wardrobe to be built on sweatshops and slave labour.  I’m willing to pay more to prevent that for the things I have to buy, but if I can make my own, I will.  And I don’t like waste: and with every T-shirt I make, there are little bits left over.

Making my own knickers uses up the scraps, give me underwear that fit and feel right, and the bits I do need to buy come from local businesses I really want to support.  While there are local companies that make awesome underwear, there are none that make underwear that are the kind of awesome I like to wear.

Knickers  are also really easy, and there is nothing like being able to whip up a couple of pairs of knickers in half an hour to make you feel like an accomplished seamstress no matter how badly anything else is going!  And that kind of satisfaction is priceless.

Making your own knickers thedreamstress.com

I actually started making my own knickers over a year ago, and have been so pleased with the result that I’m now teaching a (gratifyingly popular and successful) make your own knickers class.  I’m so pleased that so many other people want to emancipate themselves from poorly made, poorly fitted, and (at least in NZ) really expensive undergarments.

So, the only question remaining is: underwear, panties or knickers?

I grew up saying underwear, but the popular girls always said ‘panties’ and I wanted to be from a pantie saying family, not an underwear family (that is, I was fine with my family, I just wanted them to call them panties).  For one thing, underwear is so imprecise, and you know how much I love really precise textile terms.

Then I moved to NZ, and discovered the utter disdain with which  the English-English speaking world regards the word ‘panties.’  Such a small, seemingly innocuous term to attract such contempt and mockery in NZ, Australia and the UK.  Get people started on it and they will go on and on about what a horrible word panties is.  It’s completely disproportionate to the difference it makes in the world.  Panties is the Nickleback of clothing words.

The correct term, according to the pantie haters, is knickers.  I use knickers because everyone around me in New Zealand does, but when I really  think about it, knickers is  an even worse word than panties.  At least panties makes it clear what it is: panties are diminutive pants!  Knickers is just a shortening of knickerbockers, which isn’t at all what underwear look like.

So, at the end of the day, my mother was right (as she often is).  They are underwear.

I also like briefs (succinct and accurately descriptive) and smallclothes (historical and accurately descriptive), though briefs are used to describe a certain style, and smallclothes shares the problem with underwear in that it could refer to any of the garments you are wearing under your outers.

Perhaps I should act like the heroine of a Georgette Heyer novel and call them unmentionables?

Perhaps not.