Tumgik
#historical clothing
arthina · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Evening jacket, 1937, by Elsa Schiaparelli
A fine and important Elsa Schiaparelli couture Zodiac jacket, the Astrology Collection, Winter, 1938-39, Paris. This is arguably one of the most beautiful of all Schiaparelli's creations with its glittering embroidery, shimmering star-shaped beads and rhinestones set against a midnight blue velvet background. Marlene Dietrich was photographed in her Beverly Hills residence in 1938 wearing the zodiac ensemble with matching dress. Schiap was fascinated by the night sky that she used to view as a child through her uncle's telescope - the renowned astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, director of the Brera Observatory in Milan. He inspired in her a lifelong fascination with the celestial realm. He commented that the moles on her cheeks reminded him of the Big Dipper which she adopted as her 'lucky star', incorporating it into printed fabrics, the fabric lining her salon, her own personal jewellery as well as on this magnificent jacket. Schiaparelli's press agent Hortense MacDonald stated that the Astrology collection was defined by Euclid's famous geometric treatise - 'Elements'.
7K notes · View notes
die-rosastrasse · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Ball gown, 1840-41
Maker: Unknown
From the collection of Wien Museum
15K notes · View notes
fashion-from-the-past · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
Annika Caswell a student from the Wimbledon School of Art wardrobe department, dressed as Catherine Parr, next to her portrait attributed to Master John, c. 1545 in the National Portrait Gallery, London. * The students are recreating portraits dating from the Tudor period to the 19th century which have been inspiration for their lavish costumes . (Photo by Rebecca Naden - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
4K notes · View notes
lulilak · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media
52K notes · View notes
lackadaisycats · 3 months
Note
Some insight into the designs and fashion of the 20s would be so cool, especially since it's kinda hard these days to sift through just costume listing :'0
Yeah, sadly, the usefulness of a Google search is greatly diminished these days. You can still find articles written by actual human beings and genuine historical garments, but you have to wade through a lot of junky costumes and AI bullshit to get there. I can't possibly fully explain 1920s fashion here, though. It's a broad enough topic to write a sizable book about...which is why people have written many books about it. Check out some books. There are things you can get pretty cheap from resellers, everything from academic screeds about the politics behind the fashion trends of the time, to clothing catalogue compilations from the 20s, to giant coffee table books full of glorious photos.
Here's a PDF version of one of those clothing catalog collections. There's an entire preface about 1920s fashion in general too.
There are some pretty well made blogs about the topic out there as well. Vintage Dancer is one of them. The front of the site is unfortunately kind of cluttered with ads for costume apparel and modern clothing inspired by the 20s, but scroll past that to the historical bits and you'll find pertinent things.
There are some great fashion YouTubers too, like Karolina Zebrowska. Although she's not focused heavily on 1920s fashion, she talks a lot about early 20th century fashion in general. She also talks a lot about the historical context of those fashions.
Also, try online museum displays. The Met Museum has a searchable collection, for instance. Look up 1920s fashion, 1920s dresses, 1920s suits, etc.
Cameras were popular and accessible in the 1920s. Look at pictures of what people actually wore. You can find these images in free government photo archives, or licensing libraries like Getty Images (you don't have to license anything to look at it). And there's always Shorpy. Poor old, underappreciated Shorpy. Their archive is searchable.
990 notes · View notes
useless-catalanfacts · 8 months
Text
Getting dressed in traditional Valencian clothes. Interior shirt, starched petticoat, black wrought velvet doublet, wild silk skirt, and lace farfalar.
Video and dress by rodenasdressmaker on Instagram.
1K notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Wool and lace morning gown, c.1895
august auctions
741 notes · View notes
Text
FREE POETSHIRT PATTERN
Some assembly required
Ok so. I made a sewing pattern that involves a lot of maths on the end users part - this is the only way I, a complete pattern making novice, can make this 100% size inclusive. Luckily it’s super simple and it just a whole bunch of rectangles.
Tumblr media
Yes it’s written in cm. Bite me.
So to elaborate a bit:
It’s pretty straight forward. You plug in your own measurements in the places it’s needed.
Body x2: should be twice your either shoulder width or your widest point (if you’re more pear shaped you might want to use your hip width) by the length from your shoulder to about mid thigh* (you can make it as long or short as you want. This could probably also work as a shift pattern in a pinch). In one of the pieces, you should cut a slit in the middle, which as shown above should be about from your neck to your sternum.
Sleeves x2: these should be 2-3 times your bicep measure (this will determine the poofiness of the sleeves), by your arm length. Adding a few cm to the length can be a good idea here. I usually just round up to what seems most logical.
Cuffs x4: your wrist measure + 3-4cm of ease, by how ever long you want them - 5-10cm is a good place to start.
Collar x2: your collar measure** by however tall you want your collar. Keep in mind that it will be folded over.
Gussets
Oh glorious gussets. The whole reason this pattern works! But also where it gets a bit mathy
Sleeve gussets: these are square. The diagonal should be about 1/6 of your total armscye (all the way around). Rather a bit too small than too big - it can fuck up the fit (it did for me)
Shoulder gussets: these will depend wholely on how buff your trapezius muscles are. If your neck/shoulder is at a right angle, they’re not strictly necessary, but if you’re super buff, they’re very necessary. I’d say an average shoulder gusset is about 5-7cm, but it’s up to you.
Reinforcements
Again, these aren’t strictly necessary, but if you want your shirt to last it’s a good idea to put them in. You can choose to use between 5 and 10 total. These don’t need to be very big, they just go at any split in the fabric. About 2,5cm is good.
Instructions
I used these videos for assembly instructions
youtube
This is going to be hard without pictures…
youtube
youtube
*you can also keep the body as one piece, which should then be twice the length you want it. The slit at the neck will also have to be cut in the middle of the piece.
**your collar measure is the measurement at your neck going over your collarbone rather than tight to the neck.
278 notes · View notes
sewlastcentury · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
The past week's work: three digitized patterns from antique garments! - The 1840s bodice is 34/36" bust - 31" waist (pattern HERE) - The 1880s is 44" bust - 32" waist (pattern HERE) - the 1920s dress is 47" bust - 48" waist (pattern HERE)
All three patterns are currently with testers for the next two weeks and after that I will be able to put them up on Etsy!
I have seven other antiques waiting for patterning (and two more on the way) - just have to decide what to work on next....
236 notes · View notes
chaoticelegant · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media
Didn’t have my sewing machine in London, so I hand-stitched this tea dress using a 1905 pattern!
423 notes · View notes
diioonysus · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
vintage men’s fashion in black history
3K notes · View notes
arthina · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
CORSET-BODICE AND SKIRT Mid-17th Century MAGYAR NEMZETI MÚZEUM (Hungarian National Museum) Budapest, Hungary
Earlier researches attributed the costume to Pál Esterházy’s (1635–1713) first wife Orsolya Esterházy (1641–1682) and later to his second wife Éva Thököly (1659–1716). The original owner can no longer be traced but the cut and the embroidery ascertain that either could have worn it at her wedding. The suite was restored by Mrs Sándor Borsi between 1969 and 1971.
6K notes · View notes
pol-ski · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Ogrodzieniec Early Medieval Festival, Poland
© Aleksander Gabrysiak
263 notes · View notes
fashion-from-the-past · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
1895
2K notes · View notes
dresshistorynerd · 1 year
Note
How did cotton win over linen anyway?
In short, colonialism, slavery and the industrial revolution. In length:
Cotton doesn't grow in Europe so before the Modern Era, cotton was rare and used in small quantities for specific purposes (lining doublets for example). The thing with cotton is, that's it can be printed with dye very easily. The colors are bright and they don't fade easily. With wool and silk fabrics, which were the more traditional fabrics for outer wear in Europe (silk for upper classes of course), patterns usually needed to be embroidered or woven to the cloth to last, which was very expensive. Wool is extremely hard to print to anything detailed that would stay even with modern technology. Silk can be printed easily today with screen printing, but before late 18th century the technique wasn't known in western world (it was invented in China a millenium ago) and the available methods didn't yeld good results.
So when in the late 17th century European trading companies were establishing trading posts in India, a huge producer of cotton fabrics, suddenly cotton was much more available in Europe. Indian calico cotton, which was sturdy and cheap and was painted or printed with colorful and intricate floral patters, chintz, especially caught on and became very fashionable. The popular Orientalism of the time also contributed to it becoming fasionable, chintz was seen as "exotic" and therefore appealing.
Tumblr media
Here's a typical calico jacket from late 18th century. The ones in European markets often had white background, but red background was also fairly common.
The problem with this was that this was not great for the business of the European fabric producers, especially silk producers in France and wool producers in England, who before were dominating the European textile market and didn't like that they now had competition. So European countries imposed trade restrictions for Indian cotton, England banning cotton almost fully in 1721. Since the introduction of Indian cottons, there had been attempts to recreate it in Europe with little success. They didn't have nearly advanced enough fabric printing and cotton weaving techniques to match the level of Indian calico. Cotton trade with India didn't end though. The European trading companies would export Indian cottons to West African market to fund the trans-Atlantic slave trade that was growing quickly. European cottons were also imported to Africa. At first they didn't have great demand as they were so lacking compared to Indian cotton, but by the mid 1700s quality of English cotton had improved enough to be competitive.
Inventions in industrial textile machinery, specifically spinning jenny in 1780s and water frame in 1770s, would finally give England the advantages they needed to conquer the cotton market. These inventions allowed producing very cheap but good quality cotton and fabric printing, which would finally produce decent imitations of Indian calico in large quantities. Around the same time in mid 1700s, The East Indian Company had taken over Bengal and soon following most of the Indian sub-continent, effectively putting it under British colonial rule (but with a corporate rule dystopian twist). So when industrialized English cotton took over the market, The East India Company would suppress Indian textile industry to utilize Indian raw cotton production for English textile industry and then import cotton textiles back to India. In 1750s India's exports were mainly fine cotton and silk, but during the next century Indian export would become mostly raw materials. They effectively de-industrialized India to industrialize England further.
India, most notably Bengal area, had been an international textile hub for millennia, producing the finest cottons and silks with extremely advance techniques. Loosing cotton textile industry devastated Indian local economies and eradicated many traditional textile craft skills. Perhaps the most glaring example is that of Dhaka muslin. Named after the city in Bengal it was produced in, it was extremely fine and thin cotton requiring very complicated and time consuming spinning process, painstakingly meticulous hand-weaving process and a very specific breed of cotton. It was basically transparent as seen depicted in this Mughal painting from early 17th century.
Tumblr media
It was used by e.g. the ancient Greeks, Mughal emperors and, while the methods and it's production was systematically being destroyed by the British to squash competition, it became super fashionable in Europe. It was extremely expensive, even more so than silk, which is probably why it became so popular among the rich. In 1780s Marie Antoinette famously and scandalously wore chemise a la reine made from multiple layers of Dhaka muslin. In 1790s, when the empire silhouette took over, it became even more popular, continuing to the very early 1800s, till Dhaka muslin production fully collapsed and the knowledge and skill to produce it were lost. But earlier this year, after years lasting research to revive the Dhaka muslin funded by Bangladeshi government, they actually recreated it after finding the right right cotton plant and gathering spinners and weavers skilled in traditional craft to train with it. (It's super cool and I'm making a whole post about it (it has been in the making for months now) so I won't extend this post more.)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Marie Antoinette in the famous painting with wearing Dhaka muslin in 1783, and empress Joséphine Bonaparte in 1801 also wearing Dhaka muslin.
While the trans-Atlantic slave trade was partly funded by the cotton trade and industrial English cotton, the slave trade would also be used to bolster the emerging English cotton industry by forcing African slaves to work in the cotton plantations of Southern US. This produced even more (and cheaper (again slave labor)) raw material, which allowed the quick upward scaling of the cotton factories in Britain. Cotton was what really kicked off the industrial revolution, and it started in England, because they colonized their biggest competitor India and therefore were able to take hold of the whole cotton market and fund rapid industrialization.
Eventually the availability of cotton, increase in ready-made clothing and the luxurious reputation of cotton lead to cotton underwear replacing linen underwear (and eventually sheets) (the far superior option for the reasons I talked about here) in early Victorian Era. Before Victorian era underwear was very practical, just simple rectangles and triangles sewn together. It was just meant to protect the outer clothing and the skin, and it wasn't seen anyway, so why put the relatively scarce resources into making it pretty? Well, by the mid 1800s England was basically fully industrialized and resource were not scarce anymore. Middle class was increasing during the Victorian Era and, after the hard won battles of the workers movement, the conditions of workers was improving a bit. That combined with decrease in prices of clothing, most people were able to partake in fashion. This of course led to the upper classes finding new ways to separate themselves from lower classes. One of these things was getting fancy underwear. Fine cotton kept the fancy reputation it had gained first as an exotic new commodity in late 17th century and then in Regency Era as the extremely expensive fabric of queens and empresses. Cotton also is softer than linen, and therefore was seen as more luxurious against skin. So cotton shifts became the fancier shifts. At the same time cotton drawers were becoming common additional underwear for women.
It wouldn't stay as an upper class thing, because as said cotton was cheap and available. Ready-made clothing also helped spread the fancier cotton underwear, as then you could buy fairly cheaply pretty underwear and you didn't even have to put extra effort into it's decoration. At the same time cotton industry was massive and powerful and very much eager to promote cotton underwear as it would make a very steady and long lasting demand for cotton.
In conclusion, cotton has a dark and bloody history and it didn't become the standard underwear fabric for very good reasons.
Here's couple of excellent sources regarding the history of cotton industry:
The European Response to Indian Cottons, Prasannan Parthasarathi
INDIAN COTTON MILLS AND THE BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICY, 1854-1894, Rajib Lochan Sahoo
2K notes · View notes
stluciabuns · 5 months
Text
The Historical Accuracy of Kirsten's Dirndl
Despite its adorableness, I have seen many people complain about Kirsten's Swedish Dirndl outfit.
Tumblr media
I would kill a man to have bought this for $22.
She wears this outfit for most of Meet Kirsten, being that she is an impoverished immigrant child who does not own any other clothes, and also for continuity reasons.
Frequently, I have seen it claimed that this outfit is not historically accurate and should not have been included as part of her collection. Conversely, I have also seen many German folk costumes marketed as being made for Kirsten. Both of these pain me a great deal (actually they just annoy me).
Nonetheless, I have decided to further procrastinate doing actual, meaningful work and instead set out on a new mission: figure out what the fuck is up with Kirsten's Dirndl.
In this post, I will lay out the research I have done, the evidence supporting the historical accuracy of this outfit, the challenges to its existence, and ultimately aim to answer the question of whether this outfit is one Kirsten plausibly could have worn on her journey from Sweden to America in 1854.
Let's begin.
First, the name. Pleasant Company/American Girl referred to this outfit as "Kirsten's Swedish Dirndl and Kerchief."
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Swedish dirndl. "Dirndl" is a German term, and refers to folk costumes worn by people in German-speaking areas of Europe (the Alps, Bavaria, Austria, and so on).
Kirsten is Swedish, and before Meet Kirsten has never left Sweden before. It is very unlikely she would have acquired, and regularly worn, a German dirndl. See this gorgeous example of a dirndl c. 1840:
Tumblr media
Outfit, c. 1840. Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Münchner Stadtmuseum.
This ensemble is beautiful, but tragically, it is not what Kirsten is wearing.
What, then, is Kirsten wearing? What kind of traditional dress does Swedish culture have?
As it turns out, the proper term for what she is wearing is a folkdräkt. This is a Swedish term meaning "folk costume." Here is an illustration depicting multiple examples of Swedish folk costumes. In proper terms, these would be called "Svenska folkdräkter."
Tumblr media
Nordisk familjebok (1908), vol. 8, Folkdräkt. Retrieved from runeberg.org.
These outfits are not quite identical to anything we see in Kirsten's collection, but you can observe various elements that have carried over -- the vertical stripes, black woolen skirts with ornate trim, and white dresses and red sashes (hello St. Lucia)!
Let us dive deeper. What do extant Svenska folkdräkter, specially those made c. 1850, look like? Is there anything like Kirsten's outfit among surviving examples?
Tumblr media
Johan Sodermark, "Kvinna i dräkt."
In my few hours of research, this example image is the closest thing I have found to Kirsten's dirndl.
This lovely portrait is a watercolor from 1850 painted by Johan Sodermark. It is very creatively titled "Kvinna i dräkt" -- literally, "Woman in costume." The pattern of this woman's apron is incredibly similar to that of the skirt of the Kirsten doll's outfit -- a dark red base with blue and yellow stripes woven throughout.
Tumblr media
Here is a closeup from the American Swedish Institute.
Although it is not shown in the doll-sized version of the outfit, the illustrations in Meet Kirsten by Renée Graef show us she also wears a light-colored, striped apron, which is almost surely the one that comes with her meet outfit.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Illustrations from Meet Kirsten, drawn by Renée Graef.
Notice the fabric of the bodice in the third illustration, though: Kirsten's top is made of red plaid fabric, while Sodermark's girl has an outfit full of stripes. Kirsten, bless her heart, spends an entire book outfit-repeating a potential pattern-mixing fail: plaid and two kinds of stripes and a floral scarf. Did Pleasant Rowland just hate her? Is Kirsten on another, elevated fashion plane far beyond my comprehension? Is there a historical basis for this combination of patterns?
I have no answer to the first two questions, but thankfully can speak on the third.
Tumblr media
Komplett Vilskedräkt, Västergötlands museum. Some pieces c. 1865.
The top is plaid and laces up, which is not necessarily the most common way of fastening (in most examples, the bodice pins up), but it is a sensible choice considering both Kirsten's age (9) and the fact that Pleasant Company was making toys for little hands.
The model for the outer shell (the lace up top) belonged to Karl Edberg from Hällestad; it is not dated, but at least one piece of this set (the bag, which is not shown) is c. 1865. Additionally, the blouse here is very similar to the one that comes with Kirsten's winter outfit -- look at that keyhole neckline!
Tumblr media
So, Kirsten's Dirndl outfit is actually very accurate as far as the clothing itself goes...the name remains the trouble.
I have no idea why they called it a dirndl. Folkdräkt is definitely challenging to pronounce, but why wouldn't PC just translate it as "folk dress" or "Swedish outfit" and call it a day? Why the insistence on referencing a culture that isn't relevant to the doll or her dress at all?
Perhaps this is a mystery to tackle for another day...
329 notes · View notes