Portrait of Maria Theresa of Austria (1801–1855), 1817
You know those face framing curls that Regency women often sport in paintings and fashion plates? Modern ladies with bangs have it so much easier than those of us with all around long hair when creating this style! Unfortunately, I’m one of those modern ladies with long hair all around. The only short pieces I have are frizz! Nevertheless, I wanted to try to create this style at the Dolley Madison Ball hosted by the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers earlier this month.
I’ve been pondering how to fake these face framing curls with my long hair for awhile. I’ve contemplated hiding the bulk of my hair length under a turban and having the curly ends come out from under that (which I still think would work, though I haven’t tried it…yet). I had the fabric for the turban picked out from my stash, but then I decided to wear my 1819 ruffle dress and when I looked at images for turban inspiration I didn’t find anything similar to what I was envisioning for that particular period. But I did find a lot of cute buns with braids and flowers (like the painting at the beginning of this post, and this portrait from 1813, and this fashion plate from 1819, and this fashion plates from 1816). So I changed course and decided to go in that direction, instead.
Successful face framing curls surmounted by a braided bun and ornamented with a little flower bouquet!
All of the flowers and leaves used in my little bouquet are intended for millinery, meaning that each stem of blooms and individual leaf is wired. That makes it particularly moldable once it’s on my head! Originally, both flower sprays were bright white which I didn’t think would go with my ivory dress and lavender jewelry, so I decided to try dyeing the flowers to a more suitable color. After brainstorming for awhile I decided that going in a purple direction with the flowers would nicely complement the jewelry and make the entire ensemble look put together. So that’s what I did, using RIT. I wanted to be down and dirty about just getting the flowers dyed, so I used whatever colors I had (which included navy blue, wine, and purple). I made a few different cups of dye with different colors and then dipped the different stems in until I liked them, which also created variation within the sprays, which I think helps them look more lively. Unfortunately, some of the silk flowers lost their nicely cupped petal shapes after being soaked with dye, so the flowers do have a different style than before they were dyed. The more vertical sprays didn’t seem to droop at all after dyeing nor did they loose their shape. I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time!
A better view of the bouquet.
So, how did I do it? First, I separated the hair at the front crown of my head to save for later. Then I put the rest of my hair into a pony tail. I curled bits from the pony tail (about three per side) and then pinned them along the top/side of my head so they terminated right below the separated crown bit I held out from the beginning. That took a lot of bobby pins… Once I was satisfied (which took a long time and included a melt down… sigh, it happens to even the best of us sometimes!), I parted the separated crown bit and brought those pieces down over the side of my head to cover all my bobby pins. Then I wrapped the ends of those bits up into the bun. I also braided some parts of the bun, though it’s hard to see that detail in the pictures.
I had fun helping a friend make similar face framing curls for the ball, too. Here we are, being curly hair friends!
Note: My friend has shorter hair than I do–it’s maybe shoulder length (mine is at least 6-8″ longer than that)–so we were able to use the same method for her hair, but without the added extra effort of putting the front bits into the bun and then running them back to the front of the face. Basically, with my hair I had to zig zag back and forth to make the pieces short enough, but with her hair all she needed was a curling iron and the front parted bits to cover the bobby pins!
Jewels! It seems that those of us historic costume wearing types who like evening events want to be wearing them, at least sometimes. It’s hard to find real jewels in a reasonable price range, obviously, and glass or paste ones can be hard to find in a reasonable price range, too. But…
Have you seen the beautiful jewelry that Taylor is making and selling at Dames a la Mode? She has collet necklaces, various styles of earrings, and occasionally bracelets in all sorts of fabulous colors that will match any outfit you might have in your closet. Beautiful jewels in a reasonable price range!
Reproduction collet necklace at Dames a la Mode on EtsyOriginal collet necklace c. 1800 that was recently listed on ebay.
Look at how similar they are to original pieces! Here are links to my 18th century and 19th century jewelry boards on pinterest so you can see more original examples of this type of jewelry. Now you, too, can have lovely, sparkly, wonderfully beautiful jewels to wear to events.
In fact, at a recent Regency ball there were four of us wearing Taylor’s fabulous jewelry, including Taylor herself. It was my first wearing of the matching lavender collet necklace and double drop earrings that I purchased back around Thanksgiving. I received lots of compliments and really enjoyed wearing them.
Matching, but unique to each of our looks.A close up of the jewels!
During conversation, when I mentioned that I liked the dark blue sapphire-like necklace that Taylor had in her shop at one point, she made a good point, which is that lighter colors tend to sparkle more in moderate or dim lighting. Darker colors only sparkle with bright lights, which isn’t often the sort of lighting you find at a ball or dinner or other evening event set in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. Makes me glad that I decided on lavender rather than sapphire!
My project for the HSF Challenge #3: Pink is a silk belt style sash for my square neck 1812 gown. It’s a small project because I’m working on multiple other bigger projects (two different Regency dresses and a new 1850-1870 corset–more on those in the upcoming months) and I didn’t want to distract myself. Part of my decision to make a belt style sash came from the discussion with friends that led to my previous post on adding variety to Regency sash styles (this post explains what I mean by a belt style sash, in addition to explaining other Regency sash styles).
And now, as usual, on to the facts:
Fabric: None.
Pattern: None.
Year: c. 1810
Notions: About 1 yard pink silk ribbon, some unknown yards of 28 gauge wire, maybe 2 yards grayish blue hug snug, a hook and bar, and thread.
How historically accurate?: Silk is an accurate material, but nothing else is for this time frame. So… maybe 80% for looks and 40% for materials.
Hours to complete: More than it should have because I made the buckle from scratch. Let’s say 4.
First worn: To a vintage dance performance in January.
Total cost: Free (all stash materials)!
I didn’t have a non-sparkly buckle in the right size, so I decided to make one from wire. At first I thought that it might be cute with the scallops around it, but it didn’t look solid enough from a distance. So I experimented with weaving ribbons through and around the scallops. I tried gold silk ribbon first but it ended up looking like straw. In the end I decided on the hug snug because I liked the color.A closeup of the finished buckle. It wound up looking rather braided.The finished effect.
For the performance, I sewed the belt to the dress even though I also sewed a hook and bar to the belt. The idea is that I can wear it with another dress in the future if I want to!
In modern interpretations of Regency costume, there is a widespread use of what I am going to call the “ribbon sash.” By this I mean a length of ribbon, in a contrasting color to the dress and not used to trim any other part of the dress, tidily tied or sewn under the bust, and terminating with long hanging ends. I understand that this style provides an easy way to adorn a dress of any color or add color to a white dress, but I believe that the style is much too often used relative to the occurrences we see of them being worn in portraits, fashion plates, and built into extant gowns. I would like to encourage all of us to have variety in the ribbon sash styles we wear with Regency clothing.
When looking at portraits, fashion plates, and extant gowns, you do find the sort of ribbon sash I described in the beginning of this post, but you don’t find them in anywhere near the same proportion with which they are used today. You do see these types of sashes, but it is a small proportion of the styles worn and you see a variety of other sash styles, too. I would like to share a variety of ribbon sash styles with you and encourage you to pick one of these less used styles if you decide to wear a ribbon sash yourself or if you have the influence to encourage others in their own ribbon sash wearing. By expanding the styles of ribbon sashes worn, hopefully we can all more accurately represent clothing worn in the Regency period.
Generally speaking, there are 4 large categories of ribbon sash styles. I’ve included an example image of each style underneath the accompanying description and I’ve included links to other good examples (below the four sash style descriptions) so you can look at them for more ideas.
1: The Ribbon Sash (as described in the beginning of this post): a length of ribbon, in a contrasting color to the dress and not used to trim any other part of the dress, tidily sewn or tied under the bust, and terminating with long hanging ends approximately 24″-36″. It is very rare to see this style used in a fashion plate or painting with the termination of the sash in any location other than center back.
Henri François Mulard, Portrait of a lady, circa 1810
2: The Short Sash: a length of ribbon, in a contrasting color to the dress and not used to trim any other part of the dress, tidily sewn or tied under the bust, and terminating with short hanging ends approximately 6″-18″. I have seen this style with the termination of the sash in center back, center front, and occasionally off to one side of the front.
Costume Parisien, 1817
3: The Belt Sash: a length of ribbon, in a contrasting color to the dress and not used to trim any other part of the dress, tidily sewn or tied under the bust, and with very short hanging ends or without hanging ends at all. This style is sometimes plain or sometimes adorned with a buckle or bow. The buckle or bow with short ends is often at center front.
Portrait de Laure de Berny ca. 1810 by Henri-Nicolas Van Gorp
4: The Trim Sash: a much more common variant of any of the first three sash styles. Any of the first three sash styles can fall into this category if the sash matches and coordinates, in a harmonious fashion, with trim elsewhere on the dress (neckline, sleeve openings, or hem).
Costume Parisien, 1812
All of these sash styles are seen with different styles of termination. I’ve most often seen a variety of bows as well as tidy arrangement of loops. Often, the belt style seems as though the belt sash is actually sewn to the dress, but for the sake of options, I can easily see a ribbon sash made with a closure such as hook and eyes so the sash can be easily added or removed from any outfit. It’s worth noting that there are a substantial amount of images showing ladies from the front who appear to be wearing a ribbon sash of some sort. The trouble is that we often can’t see what’s going on in the back, so we can’t know with certainty what style of ribbon sash is actually being represented, though we can make educated guesses.
Here are more examples of each of the sash styles shown above:
Of course, these are only a starting point. My pinterest boards have hundreds of pins from the 1800s and 1810s that you are welcome to look at for other ideas. Keep the contrasting ribbon sashes in mind, but don’t forget that you can make sashes out of your dress fabric, too (see below). Sashes made from self fabric are quite common. Look around and see what you can find that inspires you. This Regency Portraits board has a lot of great images showing all sorts of sashes as well.
Here are some great examples of dresses with sashes made from self fabric (meaning that fabric used in the dress was also used to create a ribbon sash look):
In looking at my pinterest board covering 1800-1809, I do find that there are some very cute sashes then, too, that are relevant for a potential sash look. In this period it seems that most sashes match the trim used on the dress, though it is not an absolute rule. I’ll include a few examples of this sort below, so you can look if you’re curious.
For the record (and because I always forget!), the official “Regency” is referring to England during the years 1811-1820, following the Prince of Wales being named regent for George III in 1810. In France, the Napoleonic Empire spanned the years 1804-1814. So there is some overlap between Empire and Regency, but not a whole lot. (And just to add another date to the mix, the Federal period in America roughly spanned the years 1780-1830.) For the purposes of this post, I’m using the word Regency to specify the 1810s, but my points about variety in sash styles are relevant for the first decade of the 19th century as well.
As a final note, let me encourage you to use color in Regency dresses (color in trim as well as color in the fabric), especially in those dresses intended to represent the 1810s rather than 1800s. By the 1810s, not all dresses were in white tones, as they were much more predominantly in the first few years of the 19th century. Colors were used often, some of the colors even being rather vivid in tone (don’t get too carried away with very bright colors, though, because chemical dyes weren’t invented till the middle of the 19th century). Check out these great resources that describe and show colors used in the Regency:
Have you seen the Downton Abbey jewelry line at Macy’s? Some of the things are very modern (and ugly, I think), but some of them are quite charming and possibly even useful for historic costume purposes. There are necklaces, earrings, and brooches. Looks to me like the earrings and brooches are the best of the bunch for the most part. However, don’t be fooled by the pictures and do take a look at the measurements of things because the pictures make them look larger than they actually are!
I’ve been holding out on you. Big news, and I haven’t shared it yet! (Though I did rather give it away with the title of this post…)
So many of you dear readers feel like close friends, whether I’ve met you in person or not. And I know you’ll be very excited to hear about my engagement!
The question itself wasn’t a surprise (after eight years we’ve discussed these things in the open quite often), but he did manage to utterly surprise me by showing up at my parents house the weekend after Christmas (3,000 miles from where we live near Boston) after we’d determined that he wouldn’t be able to make it this year. It’s the first holiday he’s been able to come home, and it turned out that he’d decided on Thursday that week that he was going to come and showed up on Friday! He’d told my parents and they were super excited, not only because he was coming, but because he told them his extra little secret: that he was bringing a ring. But they didn’t breathe a word of it to me (and they assisted him in his surprise plan), and as I said, I was absolutely floored when he showed up in the living room!
The answer was also expected, though I did wait to give it for maybe a minute. Hee hee hee! I had to have my fun, too, and he knew the answer, despite me not saying the word. The ring is custom designed: a tanzanite with a diamond on either side set in white gold. I was almost a geology minor in college and I have always liked the idea of a colored gem stone that complements my normal clothing palette of mostly jewel tones. He was quite determined that I needed a modern style ring without a lot of (to him) fussy details, so this is a nice blend between our two styles. Awww…
It’s exciting, but I’m a bit daunted by the actual wedding planning part. There are so many details and so much research to do… and I really just want to skip to picking out color schemes and trying on dresses! Yes, yes, I absolutely have the skills to make my own dress… but do I have the patience to put up with myself? That is the question!
The first challenge of the Historical Sew Fortnightly (HSF) 2014 is Make Do And Mend. At the start of January, none of my in-progress projects qualified, unfortunately, and while I wanted to get started on the right foot for the HSF 2014 and not miss the challenge, I also didn’t want to make something just to make something. I don’t need more stuff with no purpose and it’s hard to stay motivated on a project if you’re doing it “just because.” So I racked my brain trying to think of what would work for the challenge and be useful, without taking too much time. I settled on the idea of turning a gifted partially finished linen man’s shirt into an 18th century shift suitable for the mid-to-late 18th century. That just happens to be the period my 18th century court gown will be from at some point this year. Useful! I made an 18th century shift a few years ago, but it’s actually late 18th century/Regency, with short sleeves, which really isn’t appropriate for the rest of the century. This new shift will sort of work for the entire century, though the sleeves aren’t really full enough to be entirely accurate for the first half.
1750-1790 shift
All of the seams are flat felled. The neck is narrow hemmed. It’s pretty accurate, though I did have to add center front and center back seams, which is not usual for these garments. Those seams are due to the fact that the shift was super wide after I cut it out because I had to deal with the neck opening of the partially sewn shirt, and that was gathered into the neck, so was super full. There was just way more fabric than was needed, so I seamed it and kept the extra with the other scraps I had. I’m sure they’ll get used someday! It’s very nice, light linen.
The facts:
Fabric: Linen reused from a partially completed man’s 18th century shirt.
Pattern: I used Mara Riley’s 18th century shift draft to cut my pieces, though I had to make some adjustments given that I didn’t start with fabric yardage.
Year: Loosely 1750-1790.
Notions: Thread.
How historically accurate?: It’s 100% hand sewn using 18th century stitches and cut in the manner of an 18th century shift, so lots of points for that. I probably should loose a few points for using polyester thread. The only other odd thing is that I have seams up center front and center back, but they did piece a lot in the 18th century, so it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility, given that this challenge is Make Do and Mend. I give it 90%.
Hours to complete: 10-15 maybe? I didn’t really keep track.
First worn: By the hanger. I probably won’t wear this until I have more things to wear with it!
Just a quick post to note that this blog recently hit 100 followers! Yay! I’m so pleased that you’re each reading and following my blog. I know there are some of you who also follow my blog via rss feed or some sort of other thing that doesn’t list itself on my side bar, and I don’t want to leave you out of my thanks. I appreciate each of you for your valuable insight, encouragement, and interest in my adventures. Thank you!
2013 flew by. Really, it’s hard to believe it is 2014 already… As I did in 2011, and 2012, here is the year 2013 in review and a look at the upcoming year 2014.
Whew! And that’s only the list of things I made for fun and for myself (no work or commissions included in that list!). As I look forward to 2014, here’s what my confirmed sewing list is looking like:
At some point: 18th century court gown and grand panniers
There are lots of other things that may or may not be started or finished, including (but absolutely not limited to) and in no particular order: an Anne Adams pattern 1930s-does-modern dress, an 1885 summer dress and hat, an 1860s corset, an 1820s bonnet, painting and decorating my Kensingtons, adding a giant bow to my 1928 evening dress, an 18th century hand quilted petticoat, more Regency reticules, and a whole host of other possibilities.
Looking at what I thought I would complete in 2013, I think I did a pretty good job of sticking to my plans. Some of the things that were on my to do list are on the 2013 to do list again because I didn’t start them, or I started them but didn’t finish them. And as usual, there are some things that have been dropped off of my list entirely because I decided I didn’t need them or I used the fabrics for some other project.
To recap other things, this blog was awarded three different blog awards in 2013!
2013 was also the first year of The Historical Sew Fortnightly hosted by The Dreamstress. My goal was to complete as many challenges as I could without making things just for the sake of making things. Out of 27 challenges, I completed 21 of them. There was a stretch of time over the summer where the projects I needed/wanted to sew didn’t line up with challenge themes or the things that I hoped to finish didn’t get done… Some of those things are still on my UFO pile, even at this point in the year! And there were a few other challenges throughout the year that just didn’t fit with anything I had planned or had the time and materials to build. 21 out of 27 is pretty good, though, considering I made lots of other things that didn’t qualify for the HSF.
And how many events did I attend? 22 total, I think. This breaks down as 10 balls, 4 performances (I feel like I must have done more than this, but I can’t think of what they were), and 7 other events including picnics, archery, kite flying, roller skating, etc. Multi-day extravaganzas include a Regency Intensive Dance Weekend and an 1860s Dance Weekend.
I am very excited to share that I am finally done sewing the trim on my 1822 Walking Dress and 1824 Ball Gown. I actually finished sewing the trim on both garments about two months ago. Yay me, for being ready for a ball a full month ahead of time!
I wore both garments this year at Fezziwig’s Ball, hosted by the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers, just as I did last year. Last year, however, I didn’t have enough time to trim them like I wanted to and I didn’t really have time to look into proper hair styles either. So this year, in addition to adding trim, I also decided to try out a different hair style that would be much more early 1820s.
I looked at lots of fashion plates and noted what elements made the styles look 1820s. This is the look, from 1823 (also pictured a little farther down). The style required a new hair wreath, so that was the only last minute sewing for this year’s event. I did the same style as the fashion plated: crossed braids on top of my head and little curls around my hair line. When you have long hair and no bangs like me it’s quite a challenge to get curls around the hair line. I managed to make the little curls happen, but I still want to improve my methods. The hair wreath was essential for hiding my long hair and only showing the curly ends. It is made of wired millinery flowers sewn to a length of millinery wire. The front bits are small flower sprays and the back is velvet leaves.
Caroling before the ball.This is a great view of the back of my walking dress and the back of my new hair wreath.Here we are: 1822 walking dress with trim, worn with a chemise, corset, corded petticoat, muff, tippet, gloves, and my new hair wreath. (If you want to see/read more details about these garments you can view the entire Project Journal for this ensemble.)1823 – Ackermann’s Repository Series 3 Vol 1 – May Issue (My inspiration for my hair wreath, hair style, and for the picture below.)Changed for the ball: 1824 ball gown with finished trim on the sleeves and front. Same undergarments with different accessories (long leather gloves with red stockings and burgundy shoes to be in the holiday spirit!).Lining up for a grand march during the ball. I loved the garlands hanging in the background.
I was amused throughout the night that people kept commenting on how much they liked the sleeve appliques on my green dress. I didn’t realize they were so exciting, but I do think they balance out the skirt nicely. By the end of the night my curls were looking a bit crazed… but it was fun, and I do enjoy wearing these garments and the style of the 1820s, in general. Oh, and I was able to wear my refreshing apron, too, though we were too busy refilling refreshments to take pictures. So yay for completion! It’s nice to get these things off the sewing list to make room for other fancily trimmed things!
The Quintessential Clothes Pen 