Posts
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| Version 1.0 of the California day dress ca. 1838. |
The Challenge: Procrastination (January 2016), Out of Your Comfort Zone (June 2015), and Stashbusting (March 2015). I didn't realize it until last month, but I neglected to publish the blog post in 2015 for the Out Of My Comfort Zone and Stashbusting Challenges, which were part of the original reason for this dress being made! 7 months is quite a procrastination, although I still don't consider this dress finished ...
California history, especially domestic history, has been a major passion and research topic for me for the past 15 years or so. Part of my research has involved re-creating typical daily outfits for California women, from the early Spanish settlement period in the late 18th century, to the early 19th century Rancho period on the eve of the Gold Rush. Unfortunately, comparatively little of the European, English, and North American fashion information from that time is widely applicable to California during the same period, due to the distance – both physical and cultural – between the people of California and those in the rest of the Western world before the Gold Rush.
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| _Mexicains_ by Emile Louis Vernier, ca. 1850. New York Public Library Digital Collection. |
Beginning in the 1760s, Spain established frontier settlements in California, but all contact with Spain ceased between 1810 and 1824 during the Mexican War for Independence; when the fighting ended, California's settlers benefited from the free trade that resulted. Trade with England and the United States enabled the people, now calling themselves Californios, to enjoy many of the products and luxuries that had long been available to more settled parts of the former Spanish empire, with closer ties to Europe. Even now, however, shipments did not usually include fashion magazines or any ready-made articles of women's attire, unless specifically mail-ordered. Almost no non-Hispanic women arrived in California to influence the local fashions during this time.
