From: owner-h-costume-digest (H-Costume Digest) To: h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Subject: H-Costume Digest V3 #176 Reply-To: h-costume Errors-To: owner-h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk H-Costume Digest Friday, September 8 1995 Volume 3, Number 176 Important Addresses: Submissions to the list: h-costume@lunch.engr.sgi.com (or reply to this message). Adds/removes/archives: majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com Real, live person: h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Topics: Using cotton instead of linen Bibliographies Corset information Vintage Dance Class in San Francisco Area Lady's Gallery Sequins are really zecchino Re: costume rental Re: corset talk clarification Ferris Corset Waists Re: sequins Re: Using cotton instead of linen Re: sequins Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. Re: Sequins are really zecchino Re: Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. Re: Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 06 Sep 95 12:12 CDT From: ROBERT@UIAMVS.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU Subject: Using cotton instead of linen I am interested in the affect of substituting cotton for linen in recreating historical costuming. What should be looked for in the cotton to make it look and hang similarly to the linen? What are the differences in the structure of these fibers that will affect there use? Will there be a noticeable comfort difference? I am specifically interested in using modern cottons instead of early medieval linen. However, I would welcome any response on this topic. Thank you. Wendy ****************************** Wendy Robertson Serials Cataloging University of Iowa Libraries (319) 335-5894 ****************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 20:05:13 PDT From: Allan Terry Subject: Bibliographies I've been trying to send this message for a while but have had mail problems. Anyway, it's about the h-costume bibliographies. I have only been able to access one of them (due to said mail problems), but will shortly try to access the others. However, I recall there was a discussion about merging them, and that some of the people who compiled the bibliographies wanted credit for entries from theirs in the merged bibliogprahy. I've compiled one long bibligraphy, and a number of short ones, to accompany professional publications. So I know it's a lot of work to select the most appropriate entries for this group of readers, or to accompany this publication. And to verify the exact titles, spellings of author's names, etc., and put each entry into the exact format recommended by the _Chicago Manual of Style_ (or whichever manual is used). And (if done) to think up categories for the entries to go in, put them in the right ones, and (if done) write annotations. Not to mention reading the books and/or articles first to get all the information needed to do these things. So I think that any bibliography compiler who has done all or most of these things deserves appropriate credit. On the other hand, if the entries are pulled off people's messages to a list such as this one, I think the original contributor--the person who read the book, recommended it, and supplied information on it--should be credited. In the bibliography I did have a chance to read, the person who organized it clearly had not read many of the books, judging from the errors in the entries and the categories chosen for them. I recognized a number of entries clerly taken from my messages, but no one told me a bibliography was being compiled or asked my permission to use the information I supplied. In one case a comment was left in--possibly by accident--with the word "I," as I put it in my original message. But since no credit was given, the implication was that "I" was the bibliographer who merely cut-and-pasted my message. I'm not saying nobody should compile FAQs, but I think it is at least polite to ask appropriate permission and give appropriate credit. Fran Grimble ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 20:14:07 PDT From: Allan Terry Subject: Corset information This is another message I've been unable to send for a while due to mail problems. Dee Wilson has been asking for, and receiving, comments and information on the wearing of corsets for use in a book she is writing. My question is: What will be done with this information? Will the commenters' exact text be used? If so this requires formal prior permission. Even if text is not registered for copyright it is still copyrighted, regardless of whether it is posted on e-mail. Also, there is the question of whether people wish their names to be attached to their comments (for credit) or not attached (because of the personal nature of some comments). So I'd like to know. Fran Grimble ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 95 20:15:02 PDT From: Allan Terry Subject: Vintage Dance Class in San Francisco Area VINTAGE DANCE CLASSES The East Bay Vintage Dance Society schedule for September and October is: September 2: Ragtime dance taught by Stan Isaacs September 9: Charleston taught by Allan Terry & Frances Grimble September 16: Boston variations taught by Terry & Grimble September 23: Ragtime dance taught by Stan Isaacs September 30: Ragtime tango taught by Terry & Grimble October 7: Victorian waltz variations taught by Terry & Grimble October 14: Authentic Regency waltzes taught by Terry & Grimble October 21: Victorian dance taught by Stan Isaacs October 28: Regency longways sets with authentic steps taught by Terry & Grimble November 4: Victorian dance November 11: Victorian dance November 18: Victorian dance November 25: Victorian dance SPECIAL RENAISSANCE CANARY WORKSHOP ON DECEMBER 16 The Victorian dances taught will include mazurka waltzes, 5/4 waltzes, Newport, Napoleonienne, Bronco, and interesting polka, galop, and schottische variations. All dance variations are researched from original sources, some especially for this class. We do our best to always teach fresh and interesting material, and to teach good styling. All classes will be held on Saturday mornings, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. Johns Presbyterian Church 2727 College Avenue, Room 203 Berkeley, California The price is $6/person. No partner required. Men and couples are certainly welcome. But if any women are worried about having a partner--for some reason this class consistently has more men than women. This is a regular series of weekly classes that will continue in upcoming months. For further information, call Clare Burmeister at (510) 527-5588. Or e-mail clareb@consensus.com or aterry@teknowledge.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 20:44:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Deborah Tarsiewicz - 3528981 Subject: Lady's Gallery I have finally seen an issue of Lady's Gallery. What a wonderful costume resource this journal is for costume makers and historians. The particular issue I saw had clear, color photos of Fortuny (sp?) gowns. There was also artwork and black and white photos of Victorians dressed in masquerade ball costumes. I only wish I had discovered this magazine sooner. On a related note, does anyone have an extra or know where I can obtain volume I, number I of Lady's Gallery. The magazine itself offers back issues but is sold out of the very first issue. Thanks for reading! Deborah Tarsiewicz Riverside, CA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 16:06:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Irene Joshi Subject: Sequins are really zecchino The term sequin (French) comes from the word zecchino which was an Italian, specifically Venetian, gold coin. A Turkish coin the sultanin was also referred to as a sequin/zecchino. Its earliest use in English as recorded in the Oxford English dictionary (OED) dates from 1617. Obviously it must have been a pesky little thing as a monetary unit and I read somewhere that its use was banned at one time for that reason and hence it was used to ornament clothing. It remained as a monetary unit at least until the early part of the 19th century. Robert Lewis Stevenson in Treasure Island referred to sequins as money. References to its use in clothing date from the 1882. "Sequins are the newest" form of artistic decoration for dresses. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Sep 1995 19:39:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "Katherine L. Rodman" Subject: Re: costume rental I need HELP!!!!! We are doing a play set in 1902 and I have designed a lovely men's norfolk suit into the show. However, we have been unable to find such a suit to rent. If anyone has any information on where I might find such a suit, size 40 or 42 regular with matching (and here's the catch) long pants (We've found a slew of them with knickers) please e-mail me privately at the address below. We are looking for the suit to be in browns and rust tones but any close approximation will do. We have already contacted most of the large rental companies around with no luck. Thank you. Kat Katherine L. Rodman Gainesville, FL afn25136@freenet.ufl.edu "Historical accuracy and costume design do not neccessarily go hand in hand" John Conklin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 10:53:20 +0100 (BST) From: Dorothy Stein Subject: Re: corset talk clarification Teresa, Greetings to you and reciprocal compliments for many thoughtful and enlightening remarks. When I taught courses in women's studies, we did a lot of work on the medical and social arguments (especially in the 19th century, but I believe there were also discussions earlier) over the terrible effects of excessively tight lacing. There was a condition known as 'corset liver', where a groove was found in the post mortem liver deep enough to receive and arm. Nothing daunted, some women actually had ribs removed in order to be able to lace even tighter. Oliver Jensen's book, The Revolt of American Women, contains a photograph of an actress named Anna Held who apparently had this done. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Sep 1995 08:05:41 CDT From: SANDY STAEBELL Subject: Ferris Corset Waists Dee Wilson wrote several days ago requeting more information as regards my post concerning Ferris Good Sense Corset Waists. I have checked my xeroxes to no avail. They really do not describe the material in these waists other than to describe the tape fastened buttons, cord-edge button holes, etc. The manufacturer was based in New York. An ad for the Double Ve waist appears in the April 1893 edition of the Ladies Home Journal. It shows a waist for a baby age one year. Although the ad does not describe the material used in waists for baby's, infants, children and young ladies (illustrations appear for all these age groups), the ladies' extra long waist was available in satteen and Italian serge. The ad copy mentions that the ladies waist has no stiff cords and the illustration appears to support this. One ad for the Ferris Good Sense Corset Waist does mention cording. All the ad copy borrows some of the buzz words of the dress reform movement -- health and comfort, recommended by physicians, etc. Sandy Staebell staebsl@wkuvx1.wku.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 09:42:02 -0700 (PDT) From: Irene Joshi Subject: Re: sequins Sequins have also been made from fish scales and as, I learned to my chagrin when I washed a dress with lovely iridescent sequins, from gelatin as well. Sequins are not of necessity made of plastic. Modern sequins certainly are, but I had the opportunity of working with a large costume collection wihich included some ice show costumes from the 50's. I also have a wonderful collar from a thirties tiny METAL sequins. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 12:12:24 -0500 (CDT) From: Elizabeth Coffey Subject: Re: Using cotton instead of linen Honestly, I have never found the drape of linen and cotton to be that close. This past weekend, I wore a new linen underpetticot. Quite honestly, it had a much better feel than my older cotton ones. (This was an 1795 dress). Last year I found a cotton/linen mix as Walmart. I made some bed ticking out of it and was satisfied with the results. Especially when I kept in mind the cost difference. You might also want to consider a cotton/ramie blend as a linen substitute. It is readily available, but less expensive than linen. I know the cost of linen can be detrimental for some, but in my opinion, nothing looks, feels, or can achieve the look of linen except for 100 percent linen. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 13:35:42 -0400 (EDT) From: "Hope A. Greenberg" Subject: Re: sequins On sequins being made of different materials: In Elizabeth A. Coleman's "The opulent era : fashions of Worth, Doucet, and Pingat" (Published: New York, N.Y. : Thames and Hudson) there is a picture of a gown with "sequins" that turn out to be cardboard disks covered in silver thread. (At least I think it's in that book--it's home and I'm not so we're relying on memory here,folks.) - ----------------- Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu Academic Computing http://moose.uvm.edu/~hag Univ. of Vermont Come visit The Hall's latest addition: Burlington, VT 05405 The Ovid Project ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 18:18:57 -500 From: "Carol Kocian" Subject: Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. Here is *a* reference, if not *the* reference that I found. It is in Blanche Payne's A History Of Costume, copyright 1965. This was my Costume History textbook in college in 1980, so I did own it when I made the corset/footbinding connection. On page 165, regarding a 12thC (mid century) Queen of Sheba statue from the Church of Notre Dame de Corbeil (in the Louvre), and statues of the same era of queens in the West Portal of Chartres Cathedral, Payne writes: "The bliaut, which for a time replaced the gown of previous centuries, has had numerous interpretations. Viollet-de-Duc's conception of a bliaut, corsage or corselet, and broad girdle has long been accepted. (Here she footnotes Viollet-de-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonne du Mobilier Francais, Bance, Edutuer, Paris, 1858, vol.III, p.43) "However, close examination of the sculptured figures from Chartres suggests a simpler explanation. The queens' costumes reproduced in Figs. 166 and 176 show no evidence of the armscye of a corselet and no indication of the wide, fitted, corset-like girdle. The smooth cloth over the queen's bust merges naturally and without a break into the horizontal folds of the fabric. In Fig. 166 the queen's mantle covers her shoulders, but there is no reason to suppose that she is wearing the wide constricting girdle over her bliaut. The general consensus is that she was wearing some sort of firm foundation garment under it." The actual reference to the undergarment "stiffened with paste" was found in a library. It sounds like that author was part of the "general consensus". I remember being surprised by it. Considering that Payne cites a source from 1858, perhaps the writer was adding the bias of the times; that a queen would wear a stiff undergarment. On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, Teresa Shannon wrote, > 11th and 12th century noblewomen may have worn a corselet oftentimes, a > tightly laced sleeved outer (only sometimes stiffened with reeds) > "jacket" .... This sounds like what Payne was referring to above. Of course, if the corselet had sleeves, there would be no armscye to find. I wrote: > As for the beginning dates of corsetry, I remember reading about > bodies made of two layers of fabric & stiffened with paste, worn in > the gothic medieval era to keep a straight, smooth shape. Definitely > not a waist-pincher! Perhaps "bodies" was the wrong word to use, since it is a later- period term. I don't remember what the mystery author called the garment. On Tue, 5 Sep 1995, Teresa Shannon wrote, (regarding footbinding) > I saw this marvelous documetary in China (by Westerners) who asked > many surviving foot-bound women, some that still had them bound, > about binding the falling out of favor, .... Teresa, do you remember what the women said about it? Teresa continues, > Anyway, about corsetry, I should be remiss if I did not ask for exact > sources, knowing not only of many scurrilous ones, but interested in the > actual facts, about the gothic plaster body cast you mention. I must have missed it if I mentioned a gothic plaster body cast. Perhaps I mentioned body casts in earlier notes regarding treatment of scoliosis. Anyway, the direct quote from one source is above. It's true that some costume history books have lots of "made up" facts. I did learn to be critical, but I found the information in more than one place! Also, Payne was selected by our professor for the class for the very reason that she was accurate & used good illustrations. -Carol Kocian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 20:18:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Heather Rose Jones Subject: Re: Sequins are really zecchino On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Irene Joshi wrote: > The term sequin (French) comes from the word zecchino which was an > Italian, specifically Venetian, gold coin. A Turkish coin the sultanin was > also referred to as a sequin/zecchino. Its earliest use in English as > recorded in the Oxford English dictionary (OED) dates from 1617. > > Obviously it must have been a pesky little thing as a monetary > unit and I read somewhere that its use was banned at one time for that > reason and hence it was used to ornament clothing. It remained as a > monetary unit at least until the early part of the 19th century. > Robert Lewis Stevenson in Treasure Island referred to sequins > as money. References to its use in clothing date from the 1882. "Sequins > are the newest" form of artistic decoration for dresses. Unless there are clear references to using the actual coins for decoration, we probably shouldn't rule out the possibility that sequins were named for their _resemblance_ to the coin rather than for their derivation from it. After all, we can find spangles used in English embroidery significantly before that OED date for the English use of "sequin". Heather Rose Jones ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 11:50:42 +0100 (BST) From: Dorothy Stein Subject: Re: Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. For those still interested in footbinding and the issue of when it originated and declined, do get hold of 'The Three-Inch Golden Lotus' by Feng Jicai, published by the University of Hawaii Press. It is a novel, and very entertaining as such, but also just crammed with information, including the lore relating to shoes and costume. The author (who wrote it in 1985) is a six foot five inch ex-basketball player! There is also a very interesting note by the translator at the back which dates the first documented reference to the practice to about 950AD. The book itself is about the opposition to footbinding of the early 20th century and supposedly finds parallels to the Cultural Revolution in the 'painful excesses' of the anti-footbinding movement. A much more obvious parallel is to be found in the anti-suttee movements in India, which also included attempts by first the Mughal and then the British conquerors to eliminate the custom. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 09:09:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Teresa Shannon Subject: Re: Corsets, Footbinding, Etc. Etc. On Fri, 8 Sep 1995, Dorothy Stein wrote: > For those still interested in footbinding and the issue of when it > originated and declined, do get hold of 'The Three-Inch Golden Lotus' by > Feng Jicai, published by the University of Hawaii Press. It is a novel, > and very entertaining as such, but also just crammed with information, > including the lore relating to shoes and costume. > The author (who wrote it in 1985) is a six foot five inch ex-basketball > player! There is also a very interesting note by the translator at the back > which dates > the first documented reference to the practice to about 950AD. The book > itself is about the opposition to footbinding of the early 20th century > and supposedly finds parallels to the Cultural Revolution in the 'painful > excesses' of the anti-footbinding movement. A much more obvious parallel is > to be found in the anti-suttee movements in India, which also included > attempts by first the Mughal and then the British conquerors to eliminate > the custom. > I just want to say regarding suttee that the Mughals probably did know what they were doing, but the British didn't regarding the affect banning suttee had on Indian women. I would venture to say this generalization probably has validity for all cases of trying to impose cultural norms on others. Women weren't incredibly valued as women, but as mothers, wives, courtesans and devas. We will ignore the courtesans and devas for now, they were from special castes, anyway. When the husband of a woman died she can't go back to her family, who probably lived a long way away, and she had no standing as a widow but for honor and presumably for the love of her husband and her own family she died with his burning body. Now this may seem horrible to us (even to some of them) but Hindu culture doesn't treat death like monotheistic cultures, which both conquerors were. Death is not so horrible, or an abrupt ending. It is a continuation in itself without the permanent moral and spiritual repurcussions inherent in christianity or islam. When the conquerors stopped the women, many times bodily from committing suttee they told her she was not even worthy of this, or from freeing herself from this life and intolerable situation, that she MUST be a casteless drudge who had to shave her head and either hope the mercy of the grooms family was enough to let her stay on as a virtual slave, or go out and die from exposure and starve to death, which was though of as a very ignoble way to die. The British, of course, thought it was a barbaric beastly custom, the mughal probably did it to embarrass and shame the women and get them as slaves, the hindus, women included, thought it was shameful and worse, it denied a spiritual and physical chance at a better life for the woman. Suttee is obviously a more extreme case than footbinding, with all the attending complexities. It is with the awareness of womens status that Indian women of this century have started to resist the suttee and other old traditions, and the modern greed of a rising middle class that has created the "accidental suttees" of new brides by almost entirely the female members of the grooms family. It is necessary to get the range of the original cultures opinion to the fashionable custom, and not necessarily the views of cultures that oppose it in more ways than just fasion that give them reasons to condemn the customs of another. Western men saw cause to praise chinese women for their mild manner, and delicate mincing walk, seeing them as perfect passive sexual objects, until, having political and economic agendas against certain Chinese factions, they found it convenient to ridicule the whole culture to get moral and other support at home in their aggressions against it. Likewise, the British civilising India had to represent all parts of their culture as barbaric to justify the treatment they gave to the Indian population. Many could probably have cared less what the women did, but if it gave them a reason to be there, then it was used. And british women were outraged by it, especially the new feminists, and supported the british occupation. That said, I am glad foot-binding and suttee are NOT prevalent in my culture. Teresa ------------------------------ End of H-Costume Digest V3 #176 ******************************* A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, send the command lines: unsubscribe h-costume-digest subscribe h-costume end in the body of a message to majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com. Thanks and enjoy the list!