Just Because

I think it’s time for some fashionable eye candy, courtesy of La Belle Assemblée. There’s something very relaxing about contemplating many of these prints, and this one, from the January 1810 issue showing fashions for February, is particularly pretty:

Evening Dress

A jacket of pale buff Merino cloth, with antique stomacher, richly embroidered in green chenille, finished with silk tassels; a fine India muslin petticoat and train, embroidered round the bottom with a trimming to correspond, and worn over a white satin slip. A Spanish cap of cloth and green satin, of the same colour as the dress, ornamented with a long green drooping ostrich feather, border similar to the dress. A French shawl of ruby coloured silk. Emerald necklace and earrings. Green kid slippers with silver roses. Limerick gloves. The hair on the forehead in short ringlets, with a long Theresa curl flowing gracefully over the left shoulder.

I’m fascinated by the construction of the “jacket” : it’s very abbreviated, with the front consisting of the stomacher (the decorated piece over the bust and tummy) and a strappy belt. I’ll bet it would have been a pain in the you-know-what to wear—probably shifting all over the place unless one sat or stood very still (or had pinned it into place!)—but it’s quite charming in an illustration (and I like the sneaky way the artist gave us the peplum-ish back view on the lady descending the stairs at right!) The embroidery around the hem of the muslin petticoat completes it nicely. And the tassels—I love tassels. 😍  And then there are her gloves: we learned about tan Limerick gloves—made of exquisitely fine calfskin—in the Accessories series.

The hat is quite a confection itself, with the matching chenille embroidery, that ostrich feather (!), and the insouciant long curl “flowing gracefully” over one shoulder; evidently one should not have cut one’s hair into a fashionable crop to sport this look. The image does not include the “emerald necklace and earrings” suggested in the text, but I kind of like the jaunty gold hoops and big pearl necklace—combined with the hat, they have an almost piratical air.  And of course, even though the Peninsular War raged on, a “French shawl” was still acceptable, because fashion.

What do you think of this decorative, if improbable, ensemble? 

And just a quick note: Regina and I will be taking a few days off to enjoy the Independence Day holiday. We hope you'll enjoy your holiday as well!

Accessories, Part 4: More Gloves

We’re back for another installment in our fashion series on NineteenTeen focusing not on dresses and gowns (gorgeous as they are) but on the little things that complete a fashionable ensemble—hats, shoes, gloves, purses, and other accessories. 

Today we’ll have a look at images of gloves from Ackermann's Repository from 1822-1829 (images from 1809-1821 were examined back in March.) For background on the role gloves played in early 19th century fashion, that post is a good place to start...as is a recently published short book from Shire Publications (love their books!), Gloves and Glove-making, which is an admirably complete (if concise) history of gloves and how they were made in Great Britain. And I have to say that the book was worth it alone for the image of a child's knitted mitten from the 16th century--wow!

So let's look at some pretty pictures. 

Walking Dress, April 1822. The workhorse of daytime gloves, York Tan:

Full Dress, May 1822. I imagine it was almost impossible to keep full-length kid gloves from not tumbling down one's arms once they'd warmed and stretched after a few hours' wear:

Ball Dress, September 1822. It's hard to judge whether the bow visible on her left arm is merely decorative, or is part of a fastening in attempt to keep one's gloves from falling:

Ball Dress, June 1823. Notice the notch in the hem--perhaps homemade to allow for somewhat plumper arms?
 

Ball Dress, July 1823. Ooh, more ruffle-edged gloves! These will more or less remain in fashion for the rest of the decade, until longer-sleeved dresses came more into fashion for evening wear:
 

Ball Dress, August 1823 and Full Dress, December 1823: Ruffles AND a bow!

Evening Dress, November 1825 and Dinner Dress, March 1826. After a few years of more of the same, a new fashion emerges: the wearing of large bracelets on top of one's gloves. How else could you have shown off your arm bling? And they might have helped a little in the sagging glove department...

Evening Dress, March 1827. Mourning gloves--or are they gauntlets? It's a little hard to tell whether the pointy bits are part of the dress or part of the gloves, though I'm leaning toward their being part of the gloves:

Morning Dress, March 1827 and Carriage Dress, April 1827.  About now, colored gloves--especially blue and light gray--seem to be fashionable for day wear. They occasionally match the dress, but more often seem to match contrasting colors in accessories like hats:

Ball Dress, July 1827. Here's a first--a pair of gloves accented with ribbon to match the dress. The zig-zag hem is also pretty cute:

Ball Dress, December 1827. What looks like eyelet embroidery around the hem--as well as seams on the back of the hands, a feature usually seen in daytime wear:

Evening Dress, February 1828. Note the embroidered floral pattern on the backs of the hands:

Dinner Dress, March 1828. And more embroidery, this time in gold:

Carriage Costume, August 1828. The old stand-by for daytime use, York Tan gloves, are still standing by:

Evening Dress, December 1828. These bracelets definitely appear to be stemming the tide:

Parisian Carriage Dress, March 1829. And gloves in contrasting colors remain fashionable for daytime wear:

I hope you've enjoyed our up-close-and-personal look at gloves!

Accessories, Part 3: Gloves

We’re back for another installment in our fashion series on NineteenTeen focusing not on dresses and gowns (gorgeous as they are) but on the little things that complete a fashionable ensemble—hats, shoes, gloves, purses, and other accessories.
 
Today we’ll have a look at gloves. They were essential to any well-dressed woman’s costume—really, to anyone who pretended to the least social standing. Think about it—if you wore dainty white kid gloves all the time, you sure as heck weren’t a member of the laboring classes, were you? Gloves were an important social cue to where their wearer stood in the social hierarchy.

Gloves appear to fall into a few basic types, based on the time of day and occasions for which they were worn.  During the day you'll often see shorter (wrist length) gloves in a dark buff color: these were known as York Tan (though not all were made in York), and they remained popular for day wear for decades for a very simple reason--they camouflaged dirt far better than white gloves would. And since no lady could be seen in soiled gloves, wearing tan gloves to start with made oodles of sense. Though I have not seen references to them in any Ackermanns' prints, "chicken-skin" gloves in a similar shade were also popular--not truly made of chicken skin, but of the skin of unborn calves (and sometimes kids and sheep). They were made in Limerick, Ireland and were of such thinness that they were packaged in walnut shells to be sold (what a sales gimmick!) Gloves dyed to match specific outfits were also seen slightly later in our period.

For evening wear, longer gloves of white kidskin were de rigeuer; fashions for decoration and embellishment (I adore the ruffled ones!) came and went.

Look for lots of images rather than commentary, though I’ll try to supply original text if I have it—the point is to be able to examine multiple examples of each item. Images are drawn from my collection of prints from British publications including Ackermann’s Repository, La Belle Assemblée, The Lady’s Magazine, Phillips’ Fashions of London and Paris, and others. However, Ackermann’s had the most detailed plates, so the majority of images you’ll see will be from that publication.  These date from 1809-1821.  Enjoy!

 Evening Full Dress, January 1809:

Opera Dress, March 1809:
 

Walking Costume, August 1809:

Morning Walking Dress, November 1809 (note that York Tan gloves often had the stitching detail on the back of the hand):

Morning Dress, March 1810:

Morning Walking or Carriage Costume, December 1810 (gloves dyed to match the mantle?):

Evening Dresses, January 1811:

Mourning Dress, December 1811 (notice the black glove):

Evening Full Dress, March 1812:

Ball Dress, June 1815:

Evening Dress, December 1815 (note the ruffles!):

Carriage Dress, February 1817 (gloves AND a muff!):

Evening Dress, January 1818 (again, black for mourning):

Evening Dress, September 1818:

Walking Dress, May 1819:

Evening Dress, July 1819 (notice the bow decorating the top edge):

Evening Dress, October 1819 (more decorative touches, this time a sort of ruff):

Evening Dress, January 1820 (another bow decoration):

Evening Dress, April 1820 (another bow):

Evening Dress, June 1820:

Walking Dress, October 1820 (another example of dyed gloves):

Flirting with Props, Part 2

Gloves…once an essential part of both ladies’ and gentlemen’s wardrobes. If you had any claim to gentility you did not stir out of doors without them, summer or winter. You wore them when making calls, when shopping, driving or riding, going to parties, and dancing—the only time you took them off was at a meal. In fact, letting a young man touch your ungloved hand was considered quite risqué (and very titillating as a result!) So I don’t suppose it’s terribly surprising that Mr. Shafer included a list of Glove Flirtations for the edification of fashionable young ladies and gentlemen in his Secrets of Life Revealed. Here’s his take on glove flirtations:

Like the handkerchief, the glove at times takes an important part in flirtations. The following are the known rules on the subject:

Biting the tips: I wish to be rid of you very soon
Clenching them, rolled up in right hand: No
Drawing halfway on the left hand: Indifference
Dropping both of them: I love you
Dropping one of them: Yes
Folding up carefully: Get rid of your company
Holding the tips downward: I wish to be acquainted
Holding them loose in the right hand: Be contented
Holding them loose in the left hand: I am satisfied
Left hand with the naked thumb exposed: Do you love me?
Putting them away: I am vexed
Right hand with the naked thumb exposed: Kiss me
Smoothing them out gently: I am displeased
Striking them over the shoulder: Follow me
Tapping the chin: I love another
Tossing them up gently: I am engaged
Turning them inside out: I hate you
Twisting them around the fingers: Be careful, we are watched
Using them as a fan: Introduce me to your company

Somehow, going to the trouble of turning a pair of kid gloves inside out just to tell someone that you loathe them seems a little over the top—isn’t a stony glare just before turning one’s back on someone equally effective? And what about "smoothing them out gently" meaning "I am displeased"? Does smoothing them out violently mean "I’m so mad I could spit nails"? Unfortunately this system doesn’t seem to allow for shades of meaning…

And speaking of gloves…last year I posted pictures of a couple of 19th century mystery objects for you to guess the identity of, with a drawing from among the correct guesses to win an ARC of Bewitching Season. Well, it’s Mystery Object time again…with the prize being a signed ARC of Betraying Season. Come back next Tuesday for a look at my diabolically difficult object, and register your guesses!

And the Answer Is...

Thank you to all of you who sent in your guesses for my contest…I hope you had as much fun guessing as I did reading your answers!

The mystery implement is indeed a glove stretcher. Kudos to those who observed that a bone or ivory implement was probably not suitable for curling tongs...and I was impressed by the ingenuity of Robinoh's guess of corset bone extractor. But yes indeed, this funky little tool was used to enlarge the fingers of kid gloves...as Ingrid pointed out, the fine kidskin gloves popular in the nineteenth century were extremely snug and needed a bit of a stretch before it was possible to ease your hands into them.

Oh…and the winner of the contest? There were eight correct answers...and the name I drew out of my offical Red Sox 2007 World Champion baseball hat was Sarah Lindsey's. Sarah, I'll be contacting you through your Blogger ID shortly. And if you didn't win, don’t worry--I have another mystery object or two stashed away, and had so much fun this week that I'll repeat the contest with a new one next month.

The subject of gloves leads nicely into a series that Regina and I have been thinking about doing…an introduction to nineteenth century women’s clothes. When I say “an introduction”, I mean just that--a overview of what young women were wearing in the first half of the nineteenth century. We’re not going to get too technical--there are some amazing books and websites out there that can tell you all the details of how fashion changed from year to year and precisely how clothes were constructed and so on. But we’d like to give you an idea of what you might have worn if you were a young woman in 1800 or 1815 or 1830.

First, a little background…

Where did clothes come from, anyway? Did your fashionable 19th century teen head down to the galleria when she was preparing her wardrobe for the London season?

Uh, no.

Ready-made clothes sold in stores were a thing of the future. Even the concept of clothing sizes hadn’t really come into being yet. What our hypothetical teen would have done is pore over the magazines of her day looking at the fashion plates, then go with Mama to the drapers’ to buy fabric or off to a dressmaker’s shop--you’ll sometimes see them referred to as a modiste or mantua-maker. All her clothes--from undergarments to coats or cloaks--would be made specifically for her. Less wealthy girls might get last year’s gowns from better-off relatives that they would refurbish, and older sisters might hand down outgrown clothes to younger sisters. No Abercrombie. No Gap.

So keep that in mind as Regina tells us about what the well-dressed teen was wearing between 1800 and 1810 in our next post.

Hand in Glove, or Not

Long, lovely, opera gloves. Is there anything more elegant? Made from supple kid leather or fine silk, they embrace your arm from fingertips to elbow and higher. Well, okay, on me they have a distressing tendency to fall down. And what was a girl to do when she wanted to eat something from the midnight supper buffet?

The answer to that little question has made for avid discussion among those of us who write about the nineteenth century. Certainly if you’re eating a formal dinner, you’d just keep them on and use your fork. But supper buffets are notorious for having the nineteenth-century equivalent to finger food. I’ve tried eating petit fours with white gloves on (oh, the lengths we go to for research!); the gloves don’t stay white.

Unthinkable that a young lady would take them off. Why, your skin might actually touch the skin of a gentleman! Scandalous! And where would you put the gloves if you did take them off? Everyday gowns and cloaks might have pockets, but you’re unlikely to find one in a ball gown. I suppose you could stuff them in your reticule, but you probably would have left the little bag, if you’d brought one, with your cloak.

So, how do you eat with gloves on? One theory is that you unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons at the wrist of your glove and pulled the portion off your fingers and hand to bare them. Then you tucked that portion inside the glove that still covered your wrist and arm so you could eat. This actually works fairly well (yes, I know from research), until you want to put the things back on. Ever tried buttoning pearl buttons wearing a silk glove?

It’s excellent research. You should try it. If you get it to work, let me know.

So, I guess I’ll never be certain what they did with their gloves while they ate. It’s one of those things that keep me up at night. Along with great books.