As a quick recap, I started my witzchoura research journey here, being confused about how the word was spelled. After sharing that with you, I moved on to look at basic witzchoura definitions and then further witzchoura references, but I haven’t really shared images of witzchouras with you yet, so that’s what this post is going to focus on.
Out of the thousands of pins on my historic clothing Pinterest boards, the images below are the only ones I could find that specifically mention that they show a witzchoura. (Never fear, I’ll be looking at not-quite-witzchouras in a future post.) If you know of any other images that specifically name the garment shown as being a witzchoura please let me know!
I find it interesting that two are yellow and two are blue. Also interesting that all the furs that are depicted are textured or downright weird (like the first one with the flower-fur… what is that?). However, in terms of materials there is variation: one of merino (wool), one of reps (could be wool, silk, or cotton, according to the OED), and two of velvet (fabric content unknown, though wool, silk, or cotton would seem to be likely).
A while ago now, during the Journal Journey Into La Belle Assemblee series, Natalie over at A Frolic Through Time brought two similar ball/evening hair styles to my (and her other readers’) attention. These styles for October 1811 were pointed out by Natalie as being perfect for someone to attempt for a Regency event and I thought “Oh! These are neat! And they would go so well with my pearl trimmed 1811 Elusive Blue gown. Perfect!” So I saved the link to the post and have been meaning to go back to it for the last few months.
After returning to that inspiration earlier this year and comparing the two styles in Natalie’s post, I decided on a turban fillet (see end of post for a definition). February’s HSF/M Challenge #2: Blue was the perfect kick I needed to get to work. While I technically submitted finishing the trim on my elusive blue dress for the challenge, I also finished my turban fillet slightly after the deadline. I enjoyed having a small project: it was a nice change from the usually long and complicated projects I often take on and am constantly in the midst of.
Here, then, is the fashion plate to which I am referring.
No. 1. EVENING DRESS. A sea-green crape dress, vandykcd round the petticoat, and ornamented with large beads; a full drapery over the shoulders, and confined in to the back with a pearl band, ornamented round the neck and down the back with beads. A full turban fillet tapered, worn on the head. Pearl necklace, white kid gloves and shoes.
And here is the finished result of my labors.
Side.Back.And the full ensemble.
I attempted to follow the detail of the hairstyle from La Belle Assemblee, down to the curls around my face (lots of extra work since all my hair is long!) and the little braid on the side. It was a puzzle to figure out and enjoyable to wear.
The question is, how did I get the turban fillet to stay in place on my head? Well, I thought of making a gathered tube wound with pearls, as Natalie proposes below, but decided to make my turban fillet have a flat back instead for multiple reasons. #1: there has to be a seam somewhere, so why not hide it intentionally? #2: I only had so many pearls, and winding them all around a sample tube used them up far too quickly so that I would never have reached the end and still been able to have pearls. #3: the angle of the pearls when winding them around was very challenging and I couldn’t figure out how to arrange them pleasingly. #4: “why waste pearls against my head?” I thought, when they’re going to be slightly uncomfortable and slippery there anyway?
So here is what I came up with: a length of fabric about 40″ long, wrapped around a strip of hi-loft poly-fill batting (not period, I know, but easy and free!), turned under and sewn down on the back, gathered across the top, with rows of pearls sewn on at intervals, and finished with loops on the back every few rows of pearls in order to secure the whole thing to my head. The entire thing is hand sewn. I have no idea how you would use a machine to assemble this the way I did!
The top is the front of the turban fillet and the bottom is the back.
And yes, I was able to wear this to a Regency ball in April!
* Natalie notes the following about the description “turban fillet”. Please check out her post to see both fashion plates she refers to.
Turban fillet. For a change, just what you might imagine: a “fillet” is normally a narrow ribbon or wire wound round or encircling the head, while a turban is a, well, a turban. In this month’s evening dress hairstyle, we have a length of fabric well gathered to make a narrow, round, gathered tube, wound round the head. The turban is wound with pearls for extra measure. Handsome and I hope that someone will take up this style for a ball before long! The ball dress plate uses a similar design; it encircles the head more like the fillets we remember from Medieval fairy tales, but ironically, the effect is more turban-like to my eyes than the evening dress example, yet isn’t called a turban. Fashion, fashion.
Back in March, I was again able to attend The Commonwealth Vintage Dancers‘ annual strictly-Civil-War ball (this is the 5th year I’ve been there, wow!). It’s been a joy every year I’ve attended and this year was no exception. Unfortunately, I only had my phone to document the evening, which means my pictures came out rather blurry. Here’s just a few.
Obviously, the most important thing to document was that I was able to wear my Refreshing Apron for the first time with a mid-century dress.Also, I danced. In this case, a schottische. (Other people danced, too, and looked quite elegant and lovely.)
Evie is always special to wear and was accompanied by the usual accessories and undergarments. The only thing I did when I came home was to mark front on the skirt, because every time I wear this gown I struggle to remember where front is! (It makes a difference when your skirt hooks to your bodice–without everything lined up properly it just doesn’t work!)
Last December, I had the opportunity to wear my green 1824 dress again at an annual holiday ball. It took a lot of time to sew all the trim on the dress (there are construction posts about this dress here) and I don’t get many opportunities to wear 1820s clothes, so it’s quite lovely to have a general “early 19th century” ball to wear this dress to.
This year we had new garland decorations and were able to get some adorable pictures! I was quite pleased with my silly figure eight braid hair style and my other accessories (the green earrings added a nice matching pop of color, the hair wreath worked well as it has in the past, and I like the white shoes with this dress). I’m behind sharing the photos, but pleased that they’re finally making it into a post.
Don’t you want to jump out of your chair and join in the dancing?
A few weekends ago now, I went to an event at The Down Town Association in New York. It was an event out of my usual ordinary line of events and so I took the opportunity to create something out of the ordinary to wear. The title of the post rather gives it away… but I only had a week to put my outfit together!
Flower Basket, 1860s. This design was created by Jules Helleu or Léon Sault, possibly for Charles Frederick Worth.
Using this image as my inspiration, I determined that I needed to make a flower basket, but that I could use Annabelle as the base for the floral dress. I also wanted to use only items from my stash, thus limiting my options a little bit. So I spent my weeknights creating a fabric basket that fit over my hoops and then furiously pinned flowers to my skirt the day we were leaving for New York in the hopes that they would look good and at least a little like my inspiration image…
(What does a flower basket do with her hands without a bouquet?)
In the end, I enjoyed my flower basket very much, but didn’t like the fact that my furious pinning job didn’t really achieve the cascading flower look I was going for and that Annabelle’s pre-existing flowers were rather heavier looking than I had hoped, also contributing to the lack of cascading flower look. Maybe someday I’ll try again with the same basket and a different, or differently modified dress, but it was fun to do something different even if the results were not as great as I hoped for.
I like the basket when you don’t see the skirt flowers.(Maybe a flower basket holds her handles?)
As I mentioned, this event was held at The Down Town Association in New York, which was established in 1860 (perfect for my fancy dress!). As far as I can tell the association is still housed in the same building they’ve been in since 1860. It was quite lovely inside, with detailed architecture and beautiful rooms. One room was a library full of a rather random collection of books. I enjoy perusing books and so proceeded to examine the titles closely. And guess what I found? A volume of Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage from 1912!
This excited me quite a bit, not only because it was from 1912, but I think also because it reminded me of Persuasion, in which Mr. Elliot is described as putting Burke’s Peerage in a position of honor in his estimation of important things in the world. Regardless, I got distracted and insisted that I needed to take pictures and look through.
Here I am, reading Burke’s Peerage!
Burke’s Peerage certainly is an undertaking, and this volume only covered the alphabet through letter L! Unfortunately, I didn’t spot a second volume in the library, but I hope it’s there somewhere.
Last post relating to witzchouras, we looked at basic definitions of the word, determining that the garment and its name developed from Polish and French influences, that the garment was popular c. 1808 to 1835, and that the chief qualifications are that it is an outer coat or mantle lined and trimmed in fur. But let’s not stop there: here are more references to the witzchouras from the early 19th century.
Side note: A Louis d’Or is a French gold coin first struck in 1640. These were promoted by the French kings to fill the need for a large denomination coin, since the franc and livre silver coins were greatly decreasing in value. In 1726, France developed monetary stability and the Louis d’Or was established as being worth 24 livres, a value that remained static through the French Revolution. At the time of this quote in 1817, a Louis d’Or referred to a 20 franc gold piece, also called a Napoleon, so named because Napoleon coopted the idea of the French kings before him. (Sources: Merriam Webster, the OED for louis d’or, Napoleon, and livre, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.)
Louis d’Or from 1709
Throughout the 18th century, a franc was similar in value to a livre, and about 20 of either of these coins equalled one Louis d’Or. La Belle Assembleé tells us that a witzchoura in 1817 was worth 30-90 Louis d’Ors. What I’m driving at here is the relative value of one of these garments.
The OED gives us an idea of the value of a livre over time: in 1746 one captain was paid 120 livres a month (6 Louis d’Ors). Extrapolate that for a year, and that captain was making 72 Louis d’Ors, just enough for a witzchoura or two and nothing else! Another example from 1797 sounds outraged that an English sea officer was charged 300 livres for eight days of lodging (15 Louis d’Ors). That’s almost 60 Louis d’Ors per month, which would easily be a witzchoura, though I doubt that sea officer would need a witzchoura instead of lodgings! The takeaway message is that, as La Belle Assembleé says, witzchouras were costly and worn only by the wealthy.
It is worth noting that there are fur lined pelisses mentioned which do not qualify as witzchouras in the eyes of La Belle Assembleé. I’ll be examining these almost-witzchouras in a later post.
Moving along some years, The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine describes fashionable witzchouras in 1833 (the OED had quoted part of this in their definition of witzchoura that we looked at in my last post):
As we established before, by the 1830s the shape of the witzchoura had changed to accommodate the changing fashions of dresses under them: becoming more cape-like, with collars and loose sleeves rather than being fitted like a pelisse as they were in the earlier years of their popularity. Again, we are reminded that witzchouras are made from expensive fur, and the more expensive the fur the more likely to see it displayed as much as possible.
Moving forward once again, C. Willet Cunnington mentions witzchouras in his book English Women’s Clothing in the 19th Century referencing a year as late as 1849: “The Witzchoura Mantle, for the carriage, lined and trimmed with fur.”
This quote from La Belle Assembleé in 1849 could be the source for Cunnington’s mention of the style, as the phrasing is quite close to Cunnington’s description:
Here there is a mention of another garment similar to a witzchoura: in this case a burnous. According to the OED again, a burnous is a woman’s cloak or mantle from the 19th century resembling an Arabian upper garment of the same name. It is interesting to note that by the 1830s and 1840s a witzchoura is described as heavy, cumbrous, and very ample instead of the more fashionable and positive descriptions from the decades prior.
This is the second mention in this post of a similar (or possibly the same) garment of Russian origin. In addition to the specific evidence of the Polish origins of the witzchoura in name and relating to Napoleon himself, I’ve also come across multiple mentions of the witzchoura style being brought back to France from Russia by Napoleon’s forces. Both of these influences fit in with the dating we’ve established and lead me to wonder if these are two separate and unique garments. Perhaps, though I suspect that if they were indeed separate styles in name they would have been variations on a similar theme, just like the fur-lined pelisse mentioned earlier in this post.
At last year’s Plymouth Thanksgiving Parade in November 2014, I portrayed suffragists with the same ladies as I did in 2013. I recently posted about the finally finished 1917 wool skirt I wore that day, but I thought it would be fun to share this video also and it didn’t quite fit in with the skirt post. It’s a little clip of us singing a suffrage song: While We Go Marching Together. For more information on suffrage songs, one of the other participants from our suffrage adventures wrote a blog post about them awhile ago that you can view here.
In addition to singing suffrage songs, we made suffrage ribbons and photocopied suffrage pamphlets, both to hand out to the public while interacting with them about the subject of women’s suffrage. We talked with men, women, and children about the value of women’s suffrage and the history of the movement, encouraging everyone to consider the importance of the right of women to vote.
From the Cranberry Scarf post, proof that I was wearing my wool skirt, though all the layers cover up the changes I made that completed it.The new placket closes with hidden skirt hooks and bars.
While the side seams, hem, and waistband were totally finished for the first wearing, the skirt never had closures. It just sat in my closet taunting me with it’s almost-finished status. When I went to finish it I realized that a side closure would make it much easier to get dresses and be less gap-y than the center back closure I had originally intended. Moving the closure meant re-do-ing the waistband, so I also used the opportunity to change out the pockets.
As a side note, pockets on day wear are genius! They’re so useful when you’re the public eye and you need to keep things like your car key, phone, and ID on you but you don’t want to leave them lying around. They free your hands from any sort of bag and ensure that your sensitive modern items are not lost or stolen. GENIUS!
New (modern shaped) pocket.
The pockets I’d originally put in were rectangles set in vertically that extended both in front of and behind the pocket slit. They are just fine in skirts with more fullness, but for this period they were hard to get my hand in and out of. So when I was changing around the waistband, I cut out a new pocket shaped like what you would find in a modern garment. The new pocket has a facing piece of the skirt wool sewn over the muslin where it might show when I put my hand in (that’s the square set of stitching on the upper right). Because I added a side closure I only have one pocket on the other side, but it is easier to use than the old pocket style was. Both the pocket and the waistband facing are made from scrap muslin (not itchy, not slippery, and who doesn’t love using up scraps?!?).
Both sides of the skirt have four covered buttons on them. Buttons were often used in the 1910s to decorate skirts and blouses (take a look at my 1915-18 Pinterest board, for instance, and you’ll see lots of examples). These buttons are just for show, though, because the skirt closes with hidden skirt hooks and bars.
Braving the cold to show off my completed skirt placket.
I referenced Jennifer Rosbrugh’s great placket tutorial (I could remember all the directions exactly, but it’s so much easier to just take a quick look to remember which pieces to cut to different sizes and where to put them!) and this tutorial showing how to add hidden side pockets (Again, nice to to have to think very hard: easy directions and good illustrative photos!). And I’m super pleased that the skirt is complete! Yay!
It’s time for a little more information about witzchouras! Back in January, I shared my round-about journey to figure out what a witzchoura is. Now it’s time to look at witzchouras in more detail to determine what qualities define them.
In that last post, we left off with this enlightening sentence from the book Empire Fashions by Dover Publishers: “Around 1808, a high-waisted, fur-lined woman’s coat appeared, the witzchoura [wi choo ra].” Here is an example of what a witzchoura looks like.
Costume Parisien from 1813
My go-to source when I get geeky about word history is theOxford English Dictionary, and lucky for me, it has an entry for witzchoura! The OED tells us it as an obsolete noun from the French vitchoura and the Polish wilczura (a wolf-skin coat) that is defined as “A style of lady’s mantle fashionable c. 1820-35.” The OED also shares four uses of the word from period sources. Here they are, with slight edits:
1823 La Belle Assemblée Dec. Witzchoura pelisse of gros de Naples,..trimmed with a very broad border of swansdown. 1833 Ladies Pocket Mag. The witchoura is a very ample mantle, made with a very deep collar, and cape, and long, loose sleeves. 1835 Court Mag. [The mantle] is of the Witzchoura form, drawn close at the back, with large Turkish sleeves, and a deep falling collar. [1898 M. Loyd tr. O. Uzanne Fashion in Paris Witzchouras had not yet [c1806] come into vogue.]
So far, our qualifications for a witzchoura include: a high waist for earlier witzchouras (to correspond with the fashionable silhouette), fur lining, fur trim, the fact that a witzchoura is a coat or mantle (for outerwear, with another garment worn underneath), that it was most popular c. 1820-1835, and that it had not yet become fashionable c. 1806. Other sources add to a witzchoura’s qualifications those of its being full length, having large sleeves and a wide collar (or sometimes hood or cape layers over the shoulders) especially in the 1830s when the silhouette changed, as well as the general period of the “early 19th century” for its popularity, which makes sense since we’ve just looked at sources that mention dates between 1806 and 1835.
There is some information telling us that the garment became popular after Napoleon gained a Polish mistress in 1808 and other information that tells us that the garment was Russian in origin and became popular after the Napoleonic Wars brought the style back to France and England. (For more information about these early witzchoura influences, check out this post at the Sewing Empire blog.)
I’m excited the word has Polish or Russian origins, because “witz” sounds Polish or German to me. Also, I love that the last quote from the OED tells us that witzchouras weren’t popular just a few years prior to the year 1814. Oh, how fashionable is a merveilleuse!
Last weekend, I took my new skates out on the ice! I took two hard falls due mostly to other people stopping in front of me, but I still had fun. It didn’t feel nearly as cold as it actually was while we moving in the sun. We went out to skate purely for the fun of doing so and didn’t wear historical clothes as we had originally intended, which meant that I could convince Mr. Q to go! (He’s behind the camera.)
Ice skating in modern clothes with the usual suspect.
On our way to the ice rink we wandered through the Boston Public Garden. During the spring and summer there are all sorts of stunning flowers (I’ve seen huge beds of multi-colored tulips during the spring and lovely tropical looking plants during the summer), but with all the snow we’ve had this winter the scene was entirely different!
The sign, which is about 2 ½ to 3 feet tall, reads “Please keep off the lawn”…That line of green you see? Not a railing. That’s the back of some of the benches that line the paths! The snow has condensed so that when walking around on the uncleared parts of the garden you’re walking at seat height (see the seat slats poking out in a few places along the way?).There is an island out in the middle of part of the pond that you can’t reach when the pond is full of water (also, it’s often being patrolled by angry looking swans), but with the pond drained and full of snow we were able to clamber about on it!For comparison, that same island is behind me in this picture from our May picnic in 2014 (more pictures of the garden are in that post, also).And here’s a swan boat on the other end of the pond at an August picnic in 2012 (more pictures of the garden, including the tropical looking plants, in that post).
Quite a different scene! We’re all looking forward to spring here in Boston (can you blame us?), though I doubt our snow piles will melt for months!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 