Happy Hallowe’en
October 31st, 2011
Halloween, with costumes and candy (or booze, in our neighborhood, just a few blocks from the famed Greenwich Village Halloween Parade) is a modern invention. It was, of course, originally All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day, which is then followed by All Souls Day. The paganish roots of the customs we now keep are often traced to the Gaelic harvest festival of Samhain.
Most mid-19th century Americans did not celebrate Hallowe’en, though the Irish immigrants were rumored to carve turnips into funny faces and place candles inside. These little lanterns placed in a window would keep away the roaming spirits, given free reign for one night a year.
I was curious to see if there were any books mentioning Hallowe’en in the mid-19th century, and I came up with this gem:
Rare Disappointment from BBC
October 30th, 2011
Yes, I’ll own it publicly. I am, like many women interested in historic fashion, generally a sucker for BBC literary miniseries. I loved North and South, Bleak House, and Daniel Deronda. And I even went so far as to purchase my own copy of Pride and Prejudice. So you can imagine my excitement when the DVD of Barchester Chronicles arrived last week. Filmed in the 1980s, it’s chock-a-block with BBC stock players, exquisite (and mostly accurate) costumes, and more lace curtains than you can shake a stick at. Alan Rickman steals the show as Rev. Slope, revealing many of the mannerisms that he would later use for the slightly-less-slimy Professor Snape of Harry Potter fame.
But for all that, I couldn’t seem to enjoy the film. Perhaps it was too long (nearly five hours). Or perhaps it was the script. I shall never understand why modern writers feel the need to revise dialogue written by literary masters. It just dripped along, without any of the clever sparkle that enlivened the books — particularly Barchester Towers, which made me laugh out loud.
And while I’m at it, I have one last quibble. The books were written in the late 1850s, early 1860s. But for some reason, the film’s costumers chose to include a number of dresses that were so obviously early 1850s. It’s almost as though they had left-overs from a Dickens production, which, come to think of it, they probably did.
Ah, Silk
October 29th, 2011
I forgot how delicious it is to sew with real silk. I’ve been banished to cotton for so long, with only an occasional foray into linen. And I don’t know that I’ve ever hand-sewn silk before.
Silkworms: caterpillar, chrysalis, and moth. Animal Kingdom Illustrated Vol 2, 1859
It’s hard to imagine how something so luscious and lustrous as silk could come from a worm. Silkworms have been cultivated for thousands of years in the east, and in Europe for centuries. The most common strain of silkworm prefers to live on the leaves of the mulberry tree. After they are hatched, the caterpillars feed voraciously on leaves until they are ready to spin their cocoons. Once finished, the cocoons are exposed to sunlight, or heat, or gas, to kill the creatures living within. Then they are submerged in water to soften the silk for “reeling” or unwinding of the delicate strands that make up the case.
Obviously some of the cocoons are allowed to hatch, providing moths for breeding stock. But most are slaughtered.
There were many excellent books and articles on silk culture written in the 19th century. I planned to share one with you, but find that they are all so detailed as to be practically useless for quick quoting. So get thee to Google Books and satisfy your curiosity on your own.
And the next time you put on that slinky silk blouse, think about how many innocent caterpillars had to die so that you could enjoy the luxury of their cocoons.
Canibalizing a Corset
October 28th, 2011
I am not good at letting go. But after years of suffering in it, and 9 months of kicking it under my desk, I decided to put my old corset out of its misery.
See how the bones are poking out at the top? And see how unlike a female body its shape is? I made it in 2006 to wear under an 1870s ball gown at “A Different Affair,” an Edith Wharton-themed dinner party at India House. Here’s the entry on the event from New York Social Diary. Scroll down to see pictures of me in my gown.
I was very thin in 2006, following a long illness, and the corset wasn’t terribly uncomfortable then. But as I gained weight, it became less able to handle my shape. By last spring, it was downright dangerous, with untipped metal boning (yes, I’m an idiot) digging into my underarm. I wore it to a 19th-century pub crawl, and had to strip in the middle of a bar because I was in such pain. That’s when I decided to retire it for good.
In case you’re curious, I used Past Patterns’s 1840s-1880s corset pattern. I’d already made their Edwardian corset, and adored it (still do). The 1840s-1880s pattern was well done (as are all Past Patterns), and easy to follow, especially since I purchased the kit. It’s a good, standard Victorian corset shape. Not particularly interesting, but safe for many periods of reenacting. The construction is easy, though I don’t know enough to tell if it’s accurate or not. It’s certainly very different from the two sets of period directions I’ve studied so far, but that doesn’t mean anything! After using a number of her patterns, I trust Ms. Altman as an excellent seamstress and proven scholar.
So why did I make such a dreadful botch out of a decent pattern? Well…I made it in a single day. No fittings. I even clipped my own boning and didn’t bother tipping the ends. Idiot. I also spent a day making a boned bustle which is still in existence, but with similar problems.
There was one thing worth salvaging about this corset though: the busk. So I cut it out before I threw the rest away (I should have given it a decent burial, but I’m in a hurry these days).
Stays, and Stays
October 27th, 2011
I think, fingers crossed, I’ve finally done it. I lost count long ago of how many iterations I’ve made of this pattern for stays (originally from Peterson’s, 1855). At least six. And here are the last two.
The one at the top fits perfectly — or comes very close to doing so. There are still some persistent wrinkles around the waist, but I think I’ve reduced them as much as I can with redrafting. The rest will be done with boning. It’s actually a rather dreadful pattern for stays. I’ve seen extent stays from the 1840s and from the 1860s that deal with the hip curve (raison des plis) in a much better way — either with a deep gore that wraps all the way around the side of the hip, or with a separate curved hip piece. Maybe this pattern was meant to be more like the deep side gore, circa 1840, but the picture and directions from Peterson’s led me back time and again to these smallish front slanting gores.
Now to make them in some nice fabric for a change!
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