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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:06 am    Post subject: Getting Dressed   First layer is her shift/chemise: Second layer is her stays. She could be in long ones, or in a shorter ones which lace up the front much like ones shown in this image from the 1790s: Over her stays and shift she would wear a single very simple petticoat (like a slip) They usually had a drawstring at the center-back waist and neck, just like a round gown): She’d be wearing simple knit stockings of cotton or wool and garters that tied, hooked, or buckled: Her shoes would either be pumps or half-boots. Three examples from the Bata Shoe Museum, c. 1805 (just for the shape) Three half-boots. From the top down, c. 1810-1820; c. 1825-1830; c. 1840 Her dress would most likely be either a simple round gown or an apron-front, made of cotton (either a solid coloured “calico” or a printed or painted “chintz”). If you’re looking for rougher servants garment it could also be of linsey (a blend of linen and wool) or of fustian (a blend of cotton and linen). Both this rougher fabrics are also heavier/thicker. Red polka-dot apron-front, c. 1808. She would most likely not be wearing drawers of any kind, but if you simply must have them, they would be crotchless (meaning that they are split along the whole crotch seam!) and would gather around the waist or lace up to tie shut: _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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havenrich
Countess of the Manor Joined: 15 Sep 2006 Posts: 1567 Location: Hammond, La	Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:56 pm    Post subject:   What I find neat is they never look like they are wearing that many layers. It almost looks like a slip and dress only. Thank you for the visual!
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:04 pm    Post subject:   The layers are all fairly light. They don't feel like they weigh anything when you're in them. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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Candice
Queen of the Board Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 2731 Location: Minneapolis, MN	Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:32 pm    Post subject:   I love seeing all the correct layers of clothing. It reminds me to skip the undressing parts of a love scene and just get them naked! Otherwise, it's too complicated! I remember when I had the opportunity for a private viewing of 1800-1810 dresses at the now defunct Costume Institute of Bath (not the Costume Museum, but a separate facility on the Circus that was for research only). The dresses were SO thin (and all of them white) that you just knew there had to have been layers underneath, both for decency and warmth. _________________
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:55 am    Post subject:   The fabrics are REALLY light. For gowns, the heaviest are calicos (about the weight of the cotton fabrics you'd buy to make a quilt) and silk satin (think Duchess satin for a wedding dress). Most of them are super light though, more like the airy cotton used for really high-end curtains or the thin silk of a sari. The exception is the wool used for habits and carriage dresses (which are really just habits without the trailing skirt). Because these garments are meant to be serviceable, they are made out of the same kind of wool coating fabric used for men’s coats, or of a heavy linen, linsey wollsey, or fustian for summer. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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havenrich
Countess of the Manor Joined: 15 Sep 2006 Posts: 1567 Location: Hammond, La	Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:46 pm    Post subject:   Well this would mean the fabric I used for my dress is spot on. It's extremely sheer and thin. I'm not sure I could make a corset but the shift and petticoat would be no problem. It stinks that the few places I've found that make corsets like these cost around $300 bucks!
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:30 am    Post subject:   havenrich wrote: I'm not sure I could make a corset but the shift and petticoat would be no problem. It stinks that the few places I've found that make corsets like these cost around $300 bucks! If you want to attempt a corset, I found the Mantua Maker pattern (#1810-3 1800 - 1820 Regency Stays Pattern) a great place to start (my one cavet is that the bust wedges were WAY too small, I ended up using the hip wedges for the bust as well; My D-cup and their D-cup bore no resemblace to one another. I HIGHLY reccomend that you make a mock-up out of muslin first and do a fitting. And I also recomend that if you're larger than a size 4, you use spiral metal bones at all the seams. For a busk, just go to someplace like Lowes and buy one of those 2' long pices of 1/4"x1 1/2" wood that they sell for models and such and cut it to the proper length for your torso. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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havenrich
Countess of the Manor Joined: 15 Sep 2006 Posts: 1567 Location: Hammond, La	Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:58 am    Post subject:   Thanks for the advice Kalen! I might attempt one next summer. Right now I seem to have a ton of stuff on my plate
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 7:15 pm    Post subject:   Reading yours and Haven's comments about the smaller sizes of these women, was it that women were on average smaller framed/boned than the average woman these days? _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 7:55 am    Post subject:   KeiraSoleore wrote: Reading yours and Haven's comments about the smaller sizes of these women, was it that women were on average smaller framed/boned than the average woman these days? Nope. I've seen PLENTY of gowns and corsets from the 18th and 19th centuries that I could wear (and I'm 5'10" and a size 16). My personal take on why most of the clothing you see in museum collections is so tiny, is that these are the pieces that couldn't easily be remade later on to fit someone else, so they were more likely to survive. Awhile back I did a blog post about the size of people “then” and “now”, because I see this misunderstanding come up quite a bit. Just How Tall Were People? One of the things I get asked about all the time, or that I see misrepresented all over the place, is the issue of just how tall were people in the past. People see a few gowns obviously made for short women and up and decide that ALL women of the era were that small . . . did it ever occur to them that the gowns that survive might have done so specifically because they were made for EXCEPTIONALLY small women, and so couldn’t be readily made over for someone else? I was recently at Kent State to view their The Age of Nudity exhibit. On one side of the room was a group of truly Lilliputian ladies in gowns c. 1810-1815. At 5’10” I towered over the dummies. On the other side of the room stood a group of Georgian ladies c. 1780-1800. At least three of the gowns would have fit me. If you’d mixed the dummies together the Regency ladies would have looked like the Georgian ladies’ prepubescent daughters. I highly doubt that in one generation the women of England shrunk so significantly. A more likely answer is simply that the gowns of tall women were more likely to be cut down and made over than those of short women, as there was more fabric involved to accommodate the change in style or owner. There are all kinds of studies out there about height. Some are archeological, taking the measurements from bones (usually femurs which allow for a good approximation of height). Some work off army records for recruits, others off the records of slaves and indentured servants. Only one that I’ve been able to find takes specific account of the social status of the people being measured (which is vital, as you'll see when we get there). Let’s get our bearings by looking at the average heights of modern American non-Hispanic Whites. Per the US government Body Mass Index study of 2003 were looking at roughly 5’10” for men and 5’5” for women. Let’s add the data from the Health Survey of England, 2004 into the mix: men 5’9” (6’1” in Scotland), women 5’4” (5’6” in Scotland). Per Professor Richard Steckel the Georgians were an average 2.5” shorter than their Medieval counterparts. He states that Medieval men were, on average, about 5’8”. This declines to about 5’ 5 ¾” in the 18th century. But Carolyn Freeman Travers, the Research Manager for Plimoth Plantation, tells us something a little bit different . . . She gives an average height for Medieval England (again based on excavations) of 5’ 6 ¾" for men and 5’ 1 ½” for women. She go on to give the average heights of 17th and 18th century Londoners as 5’6” for men and 5’ ½” for women. A MUCH smaller change than the one reported by Steckel. Another study of note is the Height and Social Status in 18th Century Germany. It found a 6” average difference between the poor and the middle class and then another 3” on top of that for the upper class. Which makes sense as studies have shown that nutrition and stress play a large roll in height (A modern studies of twins, quoted by Travers, showed that a person’s height is controlled 90% by heredity and 10% by environmental causes. 10% might sound small, but this means that 'a person who would have been 5’ 7" under optimal conditions, in an extremely adverse situation might stop growing at 5’ 1.”'). So, when I make my hero a strapping man, well over six-foot in his stocking feet, am I living in a fairy tale? Not if he’s part of the top ten-thousand, or even one of the wealthy middle class. Let’s take our “average height” of 5' 6"and add the 3” aristocratic bump. Our average male aristo is now 5’9”. Hmmm, that number seems awfully familiar . . . and it should, as it’s the average height of a modern English male! So, were people really smaller in the past? It doesn’t seem so, or if they were, not by much. Heck, my own family is a case in point: My dad is 6’, mom is 5’4”, my sister is 5’1”, my brother is 6’2” and I’m 5’10”. While the boys and I would be noticeably tall were we to magically appear on a Georgian street, my mom and sister wouldn’t stand out at all. In fact, my sister would be on the dainty side even then! _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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KeiraSoleore
Moderator Princess Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 5898 Location: Seattle	Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:28 pm    Post subject:   Kalen, I love you. Had to get that out of the way first. Thank you for the detailed discussion here. I finally 'get' it. I think in the past, discussion has come up on sizes on beds and how people slept sitting up slightly. _________________ Medieval & Regency Writer keirasoleore.blogspot.com
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Lady Di
Countess of the Manor Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 1829 Location: At the No. 10 Tea Shop selecting tea	Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:00 am    Post subject:   This is all so fascinating Kalen. I would love to attend one of your lectures. Thank you for your detailed work here! _________________ ~~*Diana*~~ Spiders we've caught in the house as of 8/30/08: 121 QOTD: How come nobody mentions spiders in their romance books set in England?
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 7:02 am    Post subject:   I'm going to be giving a couple of online workshops over the summer. I'll post about them here so you can signe up if you like. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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LadyVictoria
Baroness of the Manor Joined: 05 Mar 2007 Posts: 648 Location: Goshen, NY	Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:01 am    Post subject:   Definitely great detail, very helpful. One thing I always wondered was how they didn't burn through 100 pairs of shoes every year. I understand the soles were leather, but they were very thin. Any idea how they managed to not destroy them so quickly...or did they? _________________ ___________________ Live up to your potential instead of imitating someone else's. ~ Martha Burgess
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KalenHughes
Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100	Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:26 am    Post subject:   I'd guess that slippers/pumps didn't last very long (remember the fairy tale about the princesses dancing all night and wearing out their slippers?). If you needed something sturdy, you wore brogans or half-boots. _________________ -Kalen w/a Isobel Carr Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011 Book 1: The League of Second Sons www.isobelcarr.com
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