Category: 19th Century

1824 Blossoms Coiffure

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I had so much fun creating a hairstyle to go with the re-imagined 1824 dress I recently posted about! In addition to some more subdued styles with braids and buns, the 1820s and 1830s can often have wild styles with flowers, greenery, loops, and puffs sticking out every which way!

I’ve attempted these before, but wanted to try again. And this time, I was specifically inspired to do a twist with the hair on the back of my head, as in the fashion plate below from Modes Parisiennes in 1825.

Modes Parisiennes 1825

A twist! With flowers stuck in the coiffure and sticking out at all angles!
The setting, with the sunset and lilacs, was such a perfect backdrop for the green dress ornamented with purple and white flowers and green leaves.

Another fashion plate provided inspiration for a friend’s coiffure, as well. We wove a strand of gold beads through her hair in the style of the fashion plate below from Costume Parisien in 1824.

Modes Parisiennes 1825

More magic in this finished hair style!

Both coiffures were worn for The Footwork and Frolick Society’s Blossoms Ball. Here are a few lovely photos from the ball to provide an even greater sense of the atmosphere.

Thanks for enjoying the scenery with me!

Project Journal: 1822-1824 Ensemble Part VIII: 1824 Dress Re-Imagined (HSM #1)

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Sweeping views, a gold tinged sunset, lilacs in full bloom… and a re-work of an old dress!

Backstory

Back in 2014 I was on an 1820s kick, making undergarments and multiple outfits for dancing and staying warm while out in the winter. I shared about the design, construction process, and wearing of these garments in a Project Journal series of posts (hence the name of this blog post, which is installment VIII in this series). This link will take you to the full project journal. I wore these 1820s outfits over the next number of years, discovering different small details I wasn’t completely happy with and letting out this green dress in the sleeve circumference and back closure, in particular, to adapt to my size around 2015.

The small details that never quite made me happy included:

  • The way the skirt hung in the front with an outward fold rather than flat with a more exaggerated A-line silhouette.
  • The length, which was a little shorter than I liked the proportions of.
  • The fact that the appliquéd organza trim didn’t have quite the impact I was hoping for. I was actually a little bored with it.

Re-Imagining

I had an upcoming event to wear the updated dress to and theme was a “blossoms ball!” So as I was brainstorming about the trim I thought “perhaps I need to add more flowers!” Here is the finished result.

Let me explain the updates. The first goal was to lengthen the hem. I had actually left length on the bodice that could have been used to add overall length by resetting the waistband a lower position, but the silk fabric had permanent holes from the stitching that were quite visible, so this wasn’t a viable option. My solution was to make a new, wider waistband. This would drop the hem while also shifting the proportions just a bit to be more flattering. I still had a yard or so of this fabric carefully stashed away and cataloged (you can read about my stash system in this past post if you’re interested), so the materials part was easy.

The second goal was addressed while the waistband was getting replaced. I shifted the skirt gathers to be a little wider across the back and better suit the overlap of the formerly-let-out back pieces. In the original iteration of this dress the gathers were concentrated in about half of the space that they are now, based on the historical pattern information I was using as a guide. But what I found while wearing the dress is that that placement of the gathers was eliminating some of the A-line shape that I was going for.

Additionally, I discovered that changing the waistline curve of the side skirt pieces would also help flatten the front of the skirt and kick out the sides to create the A-line shape I wanted. This makes sense from a patterning perspective, but was an update from the pattern pieces I had taken from Patterns of Fashion when I originally made the dress. I lowered the stitch line on the side skirt panel by about 1″ and tapered that towards center front and center. back. Below is a photo of the new waistband being attached, showing the old cut edge and stitch line very clearly above the new stitch line.

The bodice still fit in its let-out state (yay!), so it was easy to reattach it to the new waistband. I carefully followed the original stitch line to keep old stitch marks from showing! Those changes covered the first two goals of this re-imagining.

The last goal was to energize the trimming! I still remember the time consuming and finicky process of adding the appliqué silk organza motifs to the dress. I didn’t want to diminish that work! But it just doesn’t pop that much on its own… The fashion plate I was originally referencing can be seen here. It is partway down the page, labeled 1824 – Ackermann’s Repository Series 3 Vol 3 – May Issue.

When I looked at fashion plates from 1822-1824 again the 3D nature of the trimmings stood out to me and I thought “what if I add 3D flowers to the existing motifs?” There are multiple examples of evening gowns with this type of 3D trimming in this digitized volume of Ackerman’s The Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions and politics. (The easiest way to find them is by looking at the thumbnails and quickly scrolling through all of the pages of text to look for the full page fashion plates scattered throughout.)

Off I went to my flower stash to see what I could find! I considered pink, yellow, and purple to complement the green of the dress. Given what I had available the purple was the winner. The color popped and brought energy to the whole dress without being garish and the flowers, which are silk but with plastic stems, didn’t appear too plastic-y to complement the silk dress. They needed a little bit of a transition, so I decided on adding some wired white silk millinery flowers as well. The fact that all of these flowers just exist in my stash in bulk was so helpful! And cost effective!

I had so much fun creating a hairstyle to go with this updated dress, too! More on that in my next post. For now, this re-make is my entry for the 2026 HSM Challenge #1 Joy For January:

Create an item that epitomises the joy you find in historical costuming – or simply something that would bring you joy at this time of year, whether it’s dark and cold, or sweltering hot where you are!

This dress fits the challenge because I find joy in:

  1. Re-making garments to fit better or have a more arresting design
  2. Re-wearing garments so I get more use out of my hard work
  3. Applying new knowledge to my projects

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: Leftover scraps of green silk.

Pattern: My own.

Year: 1824.

Notions: Thread and flowers.

How historically accurate is it?: 99%. Altering clothing to adjust for fit and shifting fashionable silhouettes is a documented historical method! A small bit off for not perfectly accurate flowers.

Hours to complete: I did not keep track. 6-8 is my guess. Most of that would have been hand sewing on the flowers.

First worn: May 16, 2026.

Total cost: $5. The fabric used was scraps from the original project. The flowers were purchased in bulk for a very low cost and stashed for years.

A New Look For Georgina

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I decided to bring an oldie but goodie out of the closet for this year’s Footwork and Frolick fundraiser tea! I made Georgina, this 1858 reproduction cotton print dress, back in 2013! You can read all about the construction details here, in the original blog post sharing about this dress.

Movement space while preparing and serving tea is limited at this event, so hoops (which I would normally wear with this dress to support the skirt shape) were out of the question. I decided to go in an earlier 1850s direction with the help of the 1830s. (If you’d like to learn more about the “reasonable” hoops I would normally wear with this dress, check out this blog post which talks about how I made them, the dimensions, etc. and compares these to a bigger, more exaggerated hoop skirt I made as well.)

Why earlier 1850s? Well, the steel cage crinoline was patented in 1856. Before these structures came into use, women in the 19th century used other methods to create volume in their skirts. Layered petticoats, petticoats with ruffles, petticoats made out of stiff fabrics such as horsehair, quilted petticoats… These could get heavy and hot, but they did manage to get the job done! I decided to go with this type of layering for Georgina for this wearing.

However, while I don’t have layers and layers of 1850s specific petticoats, I do have a number of 1830s skirt supports and petticoats. So that’s where the 1830s helped out! It’s not unreasonable to think that people in the 1850s were still wearing garments similar to what they wore in the previous decade or two. Petticoat styles changed slowly (aside from increasing in volume!). I wore my 1830s/40s corded petticoat, 1830s skirt puffer, and 1830s/40s brown silk petticoat to achieve fullness. It was a nice silhouette!

The only issue is that Georgina’s skirt was still a little big long to be able to walk safely, especially while holding a pot of hot tea! So instead of wearing flat shoes, which would be my go to for daytime wear for the 1850s (or one could wear low — 1″ or so — heels, but I don’t have the right style in a daytime shoe style), I decided to wear my American Duchess carriage boots, which have a 2″ wedge. It’s always fun to have a reason to wear them and they lifted me just enough for my skirt to be a safe length. A win on all counts!

The other fun thing about this wearing is that I added a ribbon belt! This is a style that is pretty common for the 1850s in photographs of women wearing daywear. The belts and buckles add interest and help define the straight waistlines of the dresses. In the example below, the woman on the left wears a belt with a decorative buckle.

Group of six people outdoors, R. H. Kinnear, Science Museum Group collection. Included in the article “How to spot a carte de visite (late 1850s–c.1910)” by Colin Harding. 27 June 2013.

Here are further examples (all of these are on Pinterest): a plaid dress with a belt and decorative buckle, a check dress with a belt and decorative clasp, and a printed dress with a belt and decorative clasp or brooch.

Like the skirt supports, this idea also links back to my 1830s outfits, as I purchased three different colors of beautiful petersham ribbon to use at belts for my cotton print dresses from that decade as well as decorative buckle to wear with them. In this post about wearing my 1838 yellow dress I show the brown ribbon and discuss where I purchased the ribbon and buckle. In this post I show the burgundy ribbon with the 1834 bodice for my yellow dress. And in this more recent post I show the dark green ribbon with my 1836 blue dress. The burgundy ribbon matches Georgina’s fabric perfectly, so that’s what I decided on!

It’s fun to wear this lovely reproduction print and have a new accessory to change things up! Georgina in a new light! And a few photos of lovely flowers from the tea to add a bit of charm, as well.

1830s Blue Cotton Print Dress Friends!

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The 1836 Blue Cotton Print Dress I recently posted about making (on the left in the photo below) has a very similar dress-friend… It’s like looking in a mirror!

In fact, I purchased the fabric for the 1837 dress first (on the right in the photo above). When I started making the dress and saw how cute it was I decided I needed some of that fabric for a dress for me, too! I wrote about making that first 1837 dress back in 2022, which you can read about in this post.

We enjoyed trying different colors and styles of ribbons than we had in the past to complement the colors in the cotton print for this wearing.

And fun to play 1830s-bumper-sleeves!

I find great joy in noting the construction, pattern, and accessory differences between our two dresses. It’s neat to see how the same fabric can produce two dresses from the same period and in the same general silhouette, but with two different styles!

1836 Blue Cotton Print Dress (HSM #7)

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I finished a large UFO! (That’s an Un-Finished Object.)

This is exciting because it’s been a few years in the making. You see, in 2020 I started a blue 1830s dress using the same fabric that I used for a friend’s dress. (You can see that dress in this past post. I even mention my in-progress blue dress at the end of the post!). In 2021, my dress was cut out but not assembled and by 2022, I’d started assembling the dress. I got as far as the bodice, skirt, and sleeves. But I was SO unhappy with the sleeves! They were not doing what I wanted at all. So the dress sat in the state in the image below for the next three years. From a sewing perspective, it remained on my “hopefully complete” to do list, but I didn’t have the heart to go back to the frustrating sleeves.

In 2025, however, I attached the skirt to the bodice. And, I looked at the sleeves again. I was still so sad… Finally, in early 2026 I found the energy needed to tackle the sleeves once again. I made an entirely new sleeve pattern and was finally able to move forward. My last blog post shares all the details about these new sleeves. It can be read here.

Below, showing off these new sleeves!

Next, a closeup showing the sleeves and other bodice details. The busy print on the cotton fabric hides some of the details, so its easy to appreciate them in a closer view.

Aside from the sleeves, the construction details for this dress are very similar to those for my 1838 yellow print cotton dress, which I detailed in this past post.

The white garment with the large collar is my 1836 chemisette, which I made to go with my 1838 dress bodice, as well as this dress. It’s great to have accessories that can be used for multiple outfits! You can read all about it in this past blog post.

Here’s a back view. The back of this dress is lovely, but plain.

This is my entry for the 2026 HSM Challenge #7 Artistic Inspiration:

Create something using inspiration from paintings, sketches, fashion plates, and even written references like books, diaries or newspapers, etc.

This dress is directly inspired by this fashion plate!

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: 7.5 yards of blue cotton print and 1 yard of recycled (from other projects) cotton muslin.

Pattern: My own, adapted from Patterns of Fashion, The Cut of Women’s Clothes, and The Workwoman’s Guide.

Year: 1836.

Notions: 11 metal hooks and 5 metal loops, 4 yards of narrow cording, 5 yards of 5/32″ cording, 2 yards of 2″ wide dark green petersham ribbon, and 3 yards of 1 ½” wide dark green petersham ribbon.

How historically accurate is it?: 99%. Materials that are pretty darn good for 2026, the pattern is adapted from originals, and it uses historical sewing processes.

Hours to complete: 25 ¾.

First worn: March 7, 2026.

Total cost: Approximately $40. The fabric was a score at only $3 per yard from the local discount store, the ribbons were a few dollars each per yard, and the rest of the materials were either purchased in bulk, leftover from other projects, or recycled.

And that’s it! I’ve now finished 1830s bodice/dress combinations for 1834, 1836, and 1838! It’s been fun to play with silly 1830s sleeve shapes and I now have so many variations of 1830s daywear to wear!

Successful Sleeves For An 1836 Blue Cotton Print Dress

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I started a blue cotton print dress six years ago that had been on hold for a long time to due frustrations in getting the sleeves to look the way I wanted. I’ll share more about the story of the dress as a whole in my next post, but for now I want to focus on the story of the sleeves.

My goal was to create something with the silhouette of the Morning Dress below, which was published by Joseph Robins in The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine in October 1836 (National Portrait Gallery NPG D47686).

I started with a sleeve pattern from The Workwoman’s Guide (published in 1838 and available in full online here). This had worked for other 1830s sleeves I’d been making around the same time, but I was SO unhappy with what I came up with for this sleeve. It just was not the correct pattern to achieve the look of the fashion plate at all!

Below is a photo of part of that first sleeve iteration. There was a puff at the top, as well. But the top puff was too tall, the sleeve had the wrong shape, not enough fullness at the wrist, the cuffs were too small (they barely closed), and they were without a substantial enough point to mimic the fashion plate.

So many issues! I was so upset and annoyed that the whole project went into the “in trouble” pile to languish. I didn’t put the rest of the dress away, because I wanted to put it away as a finished project, so in the interim I just had a half finished dress hanging in plain sight for literally years…

This year, I was finally inspired to try again. I decided I just had to start over from scratch and make a pattern that was based on my knowledge of how to achieve a silhouette rather than what was in The Workwoman’s Guide. After creating a pattern that looked good in a mockup, I took apart the old sleeve to see what I would have to work with as well as looking at the remainder of the fabric that had been leftover after cutting out the dress. It wasn’t much, nor were any pieces big enough for the new pattern I’d created. Eek! Would I have to do lots of piecing?

But I had a saving grace, which is that I’d saved the leftovers from my friend’s matching fabric dress with the hope of making a pelerine for myself someday. I decided sleeves were more important than a pelerine and asked if I could use the fabric for that purpose. Luckily, I was well supported with a strongly worded “Yes, make sleeves!”

Fabric sorted out, I proceed to cut and assemble the new sleeves. I mostly used the extra yardage for the new pieces, but by maxing out the seam allowance, the new cuffs were able to be cut from the old ones. They already had piping along the bottom edge and I added it to the tops at this point, as well.

Then the bottoms of the new sleeves were gathered and pinned. I decided to topstitch these by hand in order to keep the nice points and the gathers evenly distributed. I’d realized when I made a mockup sleeve that these details would be way too fiddly to do well on a machine!

Below is an assembled new sleeve. It looks a bit silly laid flat on a table, but it actually does make sense on an arm!

I had just a few steps left. First, attaching the sleeves to the bodice. Second, adding decorative elements below the top puff. Third, putting closures on the cuffs.

Looking at the fashion plate, it’s unclear exactly what the trim below the top puff of the sleeve is. My eyes perceive it as being the same color as the dress and some form of twist. I thought about this for awhile and decided to go with bulky piping. Instead of the tiny stuff used for bodices, cuffs, etc. I used leftover 5/16″  cotton upholstery cord from decorating projects.

I pieced together some rectangular scraps of the blue cotton, pressed one long edge under, and then wrapped it around the cord and whip stitched it in place. A bit tedious, but sometimes a good repetitive project with no thinking is just the thing. Below is a photo of the finished covered cord, as well as the uncovered cord across the top of the image, to show what is inside.

After finishing the cord, I started from both ends to make a twist that would wrap around the sleeve. I just eyeballed it while pinning the cord in place and then hand stitched it to the dress from the underside, creating a floating twist effect.

Being matching fabric to the dress, it is a detail that blends from a distance, but up close adds a subtle level of detail to the dress.

You’ll also notice that I added green grosgrain ribbon bows to the sleeves, as well! This is something that was directly inspired by the fashion plate. I’d bought this ribbon in 2021 when the first of my 1830s cotton print dress adventures began and it had been sitting and patiently waiting for me to finally get around to finishing this dress ever since!

One bow puff didn’t quite look like what I wanted for the sleeves, though I liked the single width of ribbon for the hanging ties. So I added another puff to the horizontal section of the bow to make it appear a little more robust. Scraps of ribbon were used to make the bow centers, as I used up every single inch of ribbon I’d purchased!

After so many years of low level annoyance at this unfinished dress, it is extra exciting to finally have it finished, actually feel pleased with the results, and have been able to wear it! I’ll share more photos of the entire dress in its finished state next time.

When The Dress No Longer Fits (1864 Green And Gold Dress, Evie) (HSM #11)

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(HSM #111Today, I have another installment of a When The Dress No Longer Fits story. I share these posts as I update older dresses to fit my current body size. You can read all of the posts in this series here.

The Back Story For Evie, My 1864 Green And Gold Dress

Back in 2013, I decided to prove to myself that a hand sewn 1860s dress could stand up to lots of wear by making a new dress and wearing it to many social engagements. Thirteen years later, I can say with confidence that the green and gold silk dress has held up well to many wearings, just as I knew it would!

Here is a past blog post with many images showing this dress, which I named Evie, when it was first made. And below, a photo from that past blog post showing the dress. Looking closely, it even has extra space at the waist…

Well that isn’t the case anymore! I haven’t worn it in the last few years because it no longer fit, particularly in the waist. I changed sizes around 2015, and at some point around there I was able to extend the life of the dress by adding a placket under the bodice lacing so it didn’t quite need to meet to fit. And the waistband was just tight.

But more recently… the waistband would not close. And given how the dress is made, with 6 perfectly even stacked box pleats around the waist, one of which concealed the opening, there was no wiggle room for adjustment without a full re-pleating. When I finally made the decision to make a new waistband and re-do the pleating, I had forgotten how old this dress is. Built in 2013? No wonder it no longer fit!

Documenting My Updates

The first step to the remake was to take note of my original pleating math. Below, a photo of the outside of the skirt with the original waistband.

Then, seam ripping the old waistband to remove it from the skirt.

I decided that while the skirt was taken apart anyway, I would do a couple of additional things:

1 – I shortened the skirt by about 2″. It had always been a bit long for dancing, but given that there was so much trim near the hem it wasn’t possible to easily hem it. But with the waistband taken apart it was easy to shorten the skirt from the top.
2 – I removed the top portion of the muslin flat lining from the skirt, leaving only about ⅓ of it around the bottom to support all of the trim and provide a facing for the silk. When I made the skirt flatlining the entire thing felt supportive, but I realized that it was unnecessarily heavy and made the stacked box pleats at the waist extra thick and annoying to deal with. So no more of that on this second version of the skirt!

Below is a photo showing the inside of the skirt in its original form, with the muslin extending all the way up to the waistband. The box pleats were so thick there was no way to sew the waistband in a conventional way, so I turned all of the raw edges of the skirt to the inside and whipped the waistband to the top edges of the folded down pleats.

Below, a photo of the inside of the skirt with the muslin cut off to end just above the trim stitch lines. It’s pinned in place and ready to be slip stitched to become a wide facing.

Next, I dug out my fabric scraps and cut an extension piece to make the new waistband larger. I also cut a piece to put a formal placket into the new skirt (to replace the previous opening, which had the raw edges of the silk and muslin turned towards each other and running stitched — that method wouldn’t work with the new all silk upper). You can see the old opening in one of the earlier photos.

Below, the old waistband, before adding extensions, and the new placket piece (laid sideways).

Once I had my new pieces cut and ready to go, it was just a matter of stitching the placket in place and then pleating the skirt to the new waistband dimensions. I don’t enjoy doing pleat math, so this step took a lot of fiddling. I’d rather pleat by trial and error… a time consuming method, but it works for my brain. It was extra brain-boggling because I was trying to hide the placket inside of the double stacked box pleats of the skirt folds, such that it landed in the middle of one of the pleated areas.

Below, the new top edge of the skirt. Shortened, pleated, and basted in place.

Once pleated, the sewing part was easy. All that remained was putting the waistband closures back on! Below is the updated waistband and placket from the outside of the skirt, with the placket hidden under one of the stacked box pleats. I reused the old waistband, even though it is a bit worn, because way not? It’s recycling and has patina!

And here is the updated skirt from the inside. The only muslin in this area now is on the waistband facing. The location of the placket, hidden under a pleat, is a little more clear.

As a bonus, I decided to stitch down the gold skirt trim a little more securely, so that it would always stay in the correct place and look tidy, rather than needing a fluff for every wearing. And, I thought that a small bit of contrast would be nice, so I added some burgundy ribbon rosettes in the middle of the gold rosettes on the skirt, too. These were gifted to me about twenty years ago (along with the beads for my snowflakes last year) and I have never known what to do with them. This worked well! I just safety pinned them from the back so they are easy to remove if/when I decide to change things up.

And that’s it! Evie is now wearable again! And the red rosettes match the paint on the walls very nicely, I think.

Historical Sew Monthly Information

I’m calling this my entry for the 2026 HSM Challenge #11: Green:

Make something that has the color green in it, or that is “green” in that it upcycles materials or resources from something else.

This fits the challenge in terms of color and in terms of reusing materials from an old dress and from gifted trimming bits!

Just the facts:

Fabric/Materials: Scraps of green silk and cotton muslin.

Pattern: My own.

Year: 1864.

Notions: Thread, hooks, bars, and ribbon rosettes.

How historically accurate is it?: 99%. Accurate materials, reasonable upgrades and hand stitching, I think this one is pretty good.

Hours to complete: I didn’t keep track.

First worn: January 1, 2026.

Total cost: Free, since everything came from the stash and was either gifted to me or purchased ages ago!

For a fun finish, here are a few more atmosphere photos showing off Evie and her well dressed friends.

1899 Elusive Blue: The Snow Queen Fancy Dress Version

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It’s time to share photos of my completed Snow Queen fancy dress outfit! This outfit, which is a re-trimming of my 1899 Elusive Blue dress, made use of new beaded snowflakes (posted about in detail here) and a recycled plastic clamshell icicle crown (posted about in detail here). Below is the finished outfit with all of the trimmings!

The trimmings included big sparkly earrings and a long strand of faux pearls worn in an 1890s style, long white gloves (an essential for an 1890s ball!), the afore-mentioned snowflakes and crown, and a bit of white fur to capture the idea of snow.

The fur tippet amuses me because it is super soft and comes in handy as a historical accessory, but also because, looking back, I made it in 2012! Here is the original blog post about it, including a definition of what a tippet is and research showing examples of tippets. How fun that it is still in my wardrobe and still coming in handy!

Here is the icicle crown in action, to give some context to the description of how it sits on my head.

To finish off, here is one more full length view of the ensemble, zoomed out far enough to see the fun bubble-shaped light fixture!

Happy new year! Thanks for enjoying this ensemble with me!

A Mysterious Domino, Part II: Making & Wearing

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This is a continuation of my last post, which shared the background of why I created this black domino cape as well as research about what a domino is and its history.

Making My Mysterious Domino

Having decided on an idea, and probably conducted more research into its history than was strictly necessary for this purpose, I proceeded to figure out how to bring my idea to life. I had the additional goal of not wanting to spend money and therefore restricted my domino-endeavors to the stash.

I started by looking through my stash binder (I posted about my stash organization in this past post) to see what fabrics I had on hand that might be able to be made into a quick and easy domino. I came up with just one — a gifted-to-me three yard piece of a black synthetic sheer, with alternating satin and sheer narrow stripes and a bit of metallic thread woven in between each stripe. I liked the drape of the fabric, as I thought it would move nicely while dancing, and I liked that while being black, it was also interesting and had more to look at than a plain solid. Three yards was plenty of fabric to allow for a large hood and plenty of length!

I think this fabric might be fun to use for something else someday, so I was loathe to actually cut it to make a domino cape. From past experience (and my patterning books), I was aware of the general shape and construction of the hoods of 18th century capes, which I was more excited by than the shape of the main body portion of capes from this period. The hoods often have quite a bit of fabric pleated into a central spot on the back of the hood and the bases are often pleated into the neck area, as well.

I started experimenting with my fabric and safety pinned a central pleated area in the center of my three yard piece. Then, I safety pinned a center back seam in the two ends of the piece, which hung down below the ‘hood.’ The next step was to safety pin a row of large pleats around what would be the ‘neck’ area, to draw in the width of the fabric around the shoulders. And… I basically had a cape!

A bit rough and ready, but my safety pinning did create a cape with a hood!

I fiddled a bit, by turning under some of the depth of the hood (and pinning it back near the central pleats) as well as pinning up swags at the front shoulder areas. I agreed with Erté (in the quote in my previous post)– that my domino should have a distinguished cut to keep me from looking like a shapeless bundle!

At that point, I realized that most of my pinned areas really didn’t need to be sewn… I could just leave in the safety pins, making it much faster to take apart if I wanted to do that someday! In the end, the only two things I sewed were the center back seam (with basting stitches by hand) and the hem (again, with basting stitches by hand). Calling it a ‘hem’ is generous, I think! I really just turned it up once with the raw edge left visible.

Wearing My Mysterious Domino

My historically plausible, mysterious looking domino cape was ready to go. I was all prepared for The Footwork and Frolick Society’s early 19th century themed Masquerade Ball!

I chose to pin the cape to my dress rather than having it closed at my neck. It made the hood pretty long in the back, but it kept the cape from pulling backwards and feeling claustrophobic, while also opening up the front view and not covering my entire dress.

And, since I felt like black mask, dark hair, and black hood was all a bit much around my face, I put my hair up around a huge bun form to raise the hood and added white flowers in front to add some contrast and a relief for the eyes.

Paired with white, gold, and pearl accessories, I created a fun new variation on an old dress!

A Mysterious Domino, Part I: Background & Research

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Earlier this year, The Footwork and Frolick Society hosted an early 19th century themed Masquerade Ball. I enjoy fancy dress themes, and so the idea of a masquerade (which takes the idea of a costume to another level by adding a mask) seemed like a lot of fun. But what was I to do to about a costume?

The dress: I had already decided that I wanted to wear an oldie-but-goodie dress to the ball — my ivory 1819 ruffle dress, finished in 2012 (and resized at some point, though I don’t seem to have a post about that on the blog).

The mask: I don’t really enjoy wearing masks (unless they are on a stick, like this, but that’s not good for a ball when you need your hands!). I find that masks irritate my face, but at some point I did buy a black lace mask for a fantasy masquerade that is very malleable and irritates me less. So I knew that I wanted to incorporate that mask into my outfit.

The costume: I wasn’t sure… my creative problem was to figure out what kind of costume would unite an ivory dress and a black mask!

I liked the idea of choosing something historically plausible and I know that themes like flowers, seasons, and historical periods were all popular for Fancy Dress costumes (and therefore, I figured, for masquerades), but I couldn’t think of a good theme that made sense with my color choices.

So I started doing some research, and came across the idea of a domino. Not a numbered playing piece from a game… but a mysterious, historical domino!

What Is A Domino?

What is that, then? A mysterious, historical domino?

A domino is traditionally a voluminous black robe-like hooded cape worn with a black half mask as a disguise during Venetian Carnival. Dominos were popular during the 18th century at masquerades and it seems that hooded capes in this century were sometimes just generally called dominos (such as this one, perhaps, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). By the 19th century, dominos were occasionally seen at masquerades, and even less often at fancy dress events (a costume party without masks).

Examples Of Dominos

Below is an example of an 18th century domino in the collection of the Victoria and Albert museum. In this case, the idea has been reimagined in pink, rather than the usual black. The museum gives this information regarding a date: 1765 – 1770 (sewing), ca. 1775 (altered) (accession number T.195-1968).

Below is another example, from the late 18th or early 19th century, also pink. This domino still shows evidence of 18th century construction styles — particularly the large gathered hood and what appear to be rectangle shaped sleeves. The extant example below is from Augusta Auctions. They labeled it as a Two Piece Shot Silk Domino, c.1800.

Below is an example of a mid-19th century take on a domino. This is a costume idea for a masked ball (or masquerade). This plate is from Thomas Hailes Lacy’s “Female Costumes Historical, National and Dramatic in 200 Plates,” London, 1865 (from Getty Images).

Susan de Guardiola has collected later 19th century descriptions of dominos that are available here, as well.

Though less common, dominos were still in use for masquerades even in the early 20th century. While looking for other unrelated research, I came across a mention of them from January 1920, when the accomplished fashion designer Erté wrote in a letter he was asked to write from Monte Carlo to the editor of Harper’s Bazar:

This winter will mark the first organized effort at gaiety since the dark night of war… Already we are planning to revive the masked ball in all its mad gaiety…

The domino–aha! … In Venice until the fall of the Republic, it was commonly worn in the streets. There reigned in the enchanted city at this decadent epoch a strange corruption of manners, and the mask was a necessity. At every entrance hung the black domino. Rich and poor alike donned it, in order that they might sally forth enveloped in anonymity…

“But,” argue some, “the domino gives to the fête an air of mystery.” I reply, “Then one may attain this illusion by means of a domino of distinguished cut, a domino which shall not make one’s figure look like a shapeless bundle.”

(From Designs By Erté: Fashion Drawings & Illustrations From ‘Harper’s Bazar’ Including 8 Covers In Full Color By Stella Blum)

I think this is a great place to pause. I’ll continue sharing in my next post, which will focus on how I whipped up a quick domino and what it looked like when worn!