Back to costuming: the mid-Victorian sheer dress.

Original sheer muslin dress, 1840s.
Old Sacramento Living History Museum.

Mid-Victorian daytime fashions were not all about heavy, opaque fabrics; warm weather allowed for light dresses of semi-transparent fabrics like muslin and barege, trimmed with embroidery, ribbons and lace for a cool, floating visual effect.  These gowns, called sheer dresses, or "clear muslin dresses", were especially popular at seaside and tourist resorts, during the 1840s through the 1870s.  They were worn for morning, afternoon and evening, changing the bodice style, and were popular in England and North America, as well as when visiting warmer climates like Italy.  These followed the lines of mainstream fashion, but included characteristic features such as shorter sleeves, lower necklines, partial bodice linings, and depending on the transparency of the fashion fabric, separate colored under-dresses.  This article, first published in the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild's newsletter, Finery, will focus on day or afternoon styles for these dresses. 

Yay! New history research project!

ca. 1840 silk dress in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

O.k., I've been volunteering in the Collections Center at the history museum where I'm on staff (in a different department) off an on for the past few years (mostly during the summers), but steadily once a week for the past 6 months.  I'm assisting the Registrar in various tasks having to do with restoring, labeling, identifying, photographing, storing, and making records for various artifacts in the collection.  All very cool because I, as a part-time volunteer, get to work directly with the artifacts with very little supervision (the perks of working with a small museum that is underfunded and understaffed, and yet has a huge collection to maintain).  The Registrar knows of my interest in and experience with historic textiles and fashion history, so he's assigned me to work primarily with the textile items that need processing and care.  It's been really fun and interesting!

Chit-chat of November fashions from 1850

_Peterson's Magazine_, 1850.

CHIT-CHAT OF NOVEMBER FASHIONS. (Godey's Lady's Book, November 1850)

To commence with out-door dress, it will be noticed that the favorite materials for walking costumes are merino, cashmeres, and silks. The first are exquisitely fine and soft, falling to the figure ... Plain colors are most in favor, and, most of all, a new rich hue of dark brown; this is the most distingue of the multitude of shades that pile the counters of our merchants. Among them are every variety of greens, blues, crimson, corn color, purples, browns, and scarlets. The same hues are in cashmere, with the advantage of being lighter and a trifle less costly. There are several styles of trimming for these heavy materials; one very simple, alternate rows of wide and very narrow plain silk braid, or galloon. A more expensive mode is velvet of the same color as the dress, embroidered with narrow braid, which has a richer effect than embossing, and, being so heavy, is suitable for an out-door costume. Alternate folds of cashmere and satin are also very pretty, but not decidedly new. Worsted lace is also much used, and a quilling of plain or velvet ribbon is always elegant.

Mid-Victorian sheer muslin dress inspiration

ca. 1850 fashion plate.

So, I'm slowly but surely working on my sheer dress for the GBACG Mid-Victorian Summer Picnic at the Fallon House at the end of next month.  Originally, I wanted to make my dress more ca. 1848 because I like the simple lines of Gold Rush-era styling, and I like the fact that not as many people do 1840s and 1850s costume as 1860s.  Not that more people shouldn't make the earlier Victorian styles, but I like being a little "different" from the majority, and with the popularity of Civil War re-enacting in the area, 1860s styles are much more frequently made.

A picnic with the Pre-Raphaelites.

Pre-Raphaelite Tea Picnic table.
Photo: Elizabeth and Virginia Urbach

The South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild enjoyed almost perfect weather and surroundings at the Pre-Raphaelite Tea Picnic and Artistic Salon.  The popular Japanese Friendship Garden was full of families -- and even a wedding party taking photos -- but the Guild was fortunate in securing a shady picnic table near the back entrance to the garden (and more importantly, near the restrooms!).

another view of the table.
Photo: Elizabeth and Virginia Urbach

The table was set with a green cloth, with a bunch of roses for a centerpiece, and fresh rose petals scattered around.  Plain white plates and clear glasses, along with a few colorful platters, were the serving and eating utensils, with the addition of fly-proof food covers!  Five lovely ladies attended in colorful summer dress, three of them in costume appropriate to the theme and occasion.  The artistic and literary world was represented by two antique books -- one full of poetry and quotations -- as well as period fashion illustrations and a book about traditions and customs from the past that should be brought back into style.  This is the menu:

Pomegranite tea punch

The ladies in attendance. 
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Blueberry scones
Homemade Meyer lemon curd
Homemade fig jam
Imported Devon cream

Pear-cardamom chutney and water crackers
Cucumber sandwiches with fresh mint and rose petals
Chicken salad sandwiches with garden tomatoes
Pastry bunches filled with spinach and cheese

Brown sugar spice cookies
Sugared raspberries and cream

It was a relaxing afternoon tea in the garden, a perfect way to spend a late-summer day! 

How to make a gored skirt from the late 1860s.

Petit Courier des Dames, 1868.  Cathy Decker.

Pre-Raphaelite costume tips are forthcoming, but in the mean time, let's have a snippet of useful information about 1860s fashion.  Everyone is familiar with the fan-shaped hooped skirt, wide sleeves and narrow flounces of the 1850s and the bell-shaped hooped skirt, coat sleeves and wide flounces of the early 1860s.  However, there is a transitional style that came in after 1865, leading into the bustle of the 1870s, which I find very attractive.  It was called the "Empire" fashion and was named after the Second French Empire (which began with the crowning of Emperor Louis Napoleon (descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte) and Empress Eugenie at that time) and the fact that the style was thought of as an "exact copy" of the fashions of France during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.

La Mode Illustree, 1867.  Tara Maginnis.

Godey tells us why we should wear real flowers instead of fake ones.

La Mode Illustree, 1867.

“Natural Ornaments.

‘The month of roses’ reminds us how few ladies make use of the most charming of all ornaments for the hair and dress, natural flowers.  They load themselves with impossible clusters of muslin roses and jessamine, with dangling pendants of glass and wax, called jet and coral by courtesy; they flash bugles and spangles into your eyes with every turn of the head, while the pendant wreaths of the Spicra Reevsi, and the graceful racemes of the laburnum and the ‘bleeding heart’, or the perfumed cups of the valley lily, are perishing, unnoticed, in the lawn and garden.
But they fade so soon?
A little experience and judgment will teach you how many blossoms will outlast the evening, and what foliage will shade them most effectively.
They are only suited to young girls?

from Lise's Garden clipart

Some of them may seem more appropriate for maidenhood, it is true; but must the young wife forego the tuft of snowy hawthorn, or the crimson petals of rose and carnation?  the glossy ivy leaf, and the fragrant tips of the arbor vitae and ground laurel?  A single spray of rosebuds, a branch of golden-hued laburnum, or snowy acacia, is far more effective as an ornament, if tastefully disposed, than all the stiff, glittering, hollow, gaudy baubles that one could find at Bordman’s or Crenange’s.  Try it for your next party, and do not ask your intimate female friend, or your showy neighbor, with her diamond spray, what the effect is, but depend on the judgment of your husband or lover.” 
-- from Godey's Lady's Book, June 1860.

Beauty tips from "Aunt Deborah", Civil War-style.

Godey fashion plate, 1860.  The Costumer's Manifesto.

A COMMUNICATION FROM AUNT DEBORAH.
I dare say many ladies will set me down for a very plain and old-fashiond person, when I say that, for cleansing and softening the skin, the most simple and the most useful articles are soft water and soap, followed by the use of a coarse cloth.  Rain-water is the best, but most water may be rendered sufficiently soft by putting into it a small pinch of the washing or bleaching powders now so much in use.  Soap, in addition to a proper proportion of alkali, should contain so much oily matter as may mechanically soften the skin and promote its smoothness.  I will furnish a receipt or two for the manufacture of suitable soap, or wash-balls, though good almond or Castile soap will generally answer the purpose.  The process will be rendered still more easy and pleasant, if lukewarm water be used instead of cold, but a final rinsing in cold water will be an improvement. 
-- from Godey's Lady' Book, February 1860. 

1830s costume stuff!

image at left: Gentlemen of the 1830s.
In anticipation of my attending the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild Open House and annual meeting tomorrow (well, actually today, since it's midnight now!), here are some photos taken with my new nifty neato camera (with a real, honest-to-goodness ZOOM and adjustable FOCUS!), of some of my antique and vintage fashion print collection. Nothing like costume goodies for not much money! Although I think fashion plates might be more expensive these days (I bought mine over 10 years ago).

This image is of a collection of 1830s figures that were purchased by a friend of mine -- having been cut out of their original fashion magazine by a previous owner -- and she assembled them into a frame for me.