Five Pinterest Pages You Might Want to Follow

Okay, I admit it. When someone first mentioned Pinterest I rolled my eyes and thought, “Oh, swell—another social media site I’m supposed to join.” I have dragged my feet for years and finally decided that 2016 would be the moment Regina Scott set up her own Pinterest page. After all, I slog through Facebook and hide under the radar on Goodreads. How hard could adding one more task be?

As it turns out, not hard at all. In fact, I love it!

I am not the most social person (introvert, anyone?), and I find Facebook a little like attending a party with the cool kids, where I’m stuck in the corner. But Pinterest involves looking at pretty pictures and telling other people how pretty their pictures are. Even an introvert like me can handle that!

Even if you never pin a single picture, you might want to join just so you can see what others are posting. For a historical writer or reader, it’s an absolute treasure trove! Here are five pinners you may want to check out:

The Beau Monde. Romance Writers of America’s Regency special interest chapter has pinned information on historical romance novels, research, and special reports (including a collection on Georgette Heyer’s works). Plus they’re just some of the coolest ladies out there. Just saying. 

Regency Regalia. Though the company makes authentic reproduction clothing and accessories from the Regency era, the boards they build on Pinterest include thousands of original pieces of art and photographs detailing period wear. What a resource! 

The Victoria and Albert Museum. This is one of the best museums in England, and the curators have made available more than 3,000 pictures of various artifacts and exhibits. It’s the next best thing to going there! 

Sydney Paulsen’s Fort Nisqually Board. Fort Nisqually, located in Point Defiance Park, is one of my favorite places for inspiration when writing my Frontier Bachelor series, in large part because of the incredibly talented re-enactors who make the past come alive. This board of Sydney’s covers the 1850s and 1860s. 

Tall Ship Lady Washington. Ah, you know my fondness for our state’s tall ship. She is a lady of the first order. See some of the places she’s gone and the wonderful memories folks have made on her. 

And of course, you can always follow my boards to see inspiration for various books, book covers, my own growing cache of tall ship pictures, and more.

Are you on Pinterest? What historical boards have you found to love?

Eye Candy, NineteenTeen Style

On some sites, “eye candy” might involve, say, sculpted male torsos. Or a handsomely-filled-out pair of jeans. On NineteenTeen, however, eye candy usually means one thing: amazing historical costumes!

I recently ran across what may win the Best Eye Candy Award for 2015 in a perfectly gorgeous book called “London Society Fashion 1905- 1925: The Wardrobe of Heather Firbank”, published this year by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. If you have the remotest interest in the fashions of the early part of the twentieth century, this book is for you.

Heather Firbank (1888-1954) was the only daughter of a wealthy upper-middle-class family which included her brother Ronald, who would one day become a well-known author and playwright. She was attractive and well-connected, and when she made her debut in London in 1908, her future seemed assured: marriage, probably into the lower tiers of the aristocracy, and a respected place in society. Financial reverses a few years before her coming-out sent the family on a downhill slope, but Heather’s wardrobe allowance did not feel the pinch; her family knew that making the right impression in society would be vital for her future. So the young woman (twenty the year she made her debut—two years later than usual) was launched into society with a most elegant wardrobe...and interestingly, seems to have tried to create a “brand” for herself, frequently wearing clothes in shades of purple and mauve and using heather as a personal emblem on everything from her notepaper to the embroidered monograms on her underwear.

The death of Heather’s father in 1910 meant further belt-tightening...but Heather and her mother seemed to have continued to spend prodigious amounts of money on their clothes. Though she embarked on a few secret love affairs, Heather never married, and spent the years after the war in Richmond, nursing her dying mother. With her beloved brother Ronald’s death in 1926 she packed up her extensive wardrobe and put it into storage...and upon her death in 1954 at the age of 67, the untouched trunks were offered to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This book is a record of that wardrobe...and it is simply sumptuous.

The Heather Firbank collection contains not only garments for every conceivable occasion, from ballgowns to tennis dresses, but also the accompanying undergarments, stockings, shoes, purses, and hats, representatives of which all appear in this book...not to mention ephemera like photographs of Heather wearing some of the depicted dresses, couturier bills, and sketches. The photography is beautiful, showing garments in both full length and in detail (that cover image is what first caught my eye.) The accompanying text, which details Heather’s life and examines the London fashion industry, is well-researched and written...but it is the photographs that make this book. Highly recommended!

Shall We Confer?

From your erudite responses to our posts, Marissa and I know that some of you are writers as well. We humbly invite those who will be attending the Romance Writers of America National Conference in Washington, D.C., next week to join us for breakfast! Marissa and I will be at the Saturday morning (July 11) buffet breakfast, the farthest tables from the buffet, waving fans. Yes, fans—lovely sandalwood affairs quite similar to those used during the nineteenth century. Join us for scintillating conversation, and you might just walk away with one!

If you are not attending the conference, but will be in the area, we highly recommend the “Readers for Life” Literacy Autographing on Wednesday, July 15, from 5:30 to 7:30pm. Just standing in the massive ballroom, gazing out at 500 romance authors signing books for charity, is enough to make one swoon in pure delight! Marissa will be signing Bewitching Season, and I’ll be around eagerly collecting books from my other favorite authors. For more information and a list of participating authors, see the conference site.

Marissa and I hope to blog from the conference, so look for interesting insights and tantalizing tidbits next week.

And speaking of tantalizing tidbits, may I offer you a few fun activities while you wait?

• Ever wanted your own room decorated just like in the nineteenth century? Now you can design it yourself, using the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Thomas Hope Design a Room Challenge.



• More of a clothes person, are you? This nineteenth century paper doll is endlessly amusing (and addicting!).

Enjoy, and hope to see you in D.C.!