From: owner-h-costume-digest (H-Costume Digest) To: h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Subject: H-Costume Digest V4 #65 Reply-To: h-costume Sender: owner-h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Errors-To: owner-h-costume-digest@lunch.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk H-Costume Digest Tuesday, March 12 1996 Volume 4, Number 65 Compilation copyright (C) 1996 Diane Barlow Close and Gretchen Miller Use in whole prohibited. Individual articles are the property of the author. Seek permission from that author before reprinting or quoting elsewhere. Important Addresses: Send submissions to: h-costume@lunch.engr.sgi.com (or reply to this message). Adds/drops/archives: majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com Real, live person: h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Topics: Re: Corsets & big busts Re: Where did the man's tie come from? Re: Short hair for women? Duplicated messages problem... Admin: Monthly reminders (unsubscribing, archives, etc.) Dress/Italy 1300-1600 conference opps, forgot... [none] Short Hair 1860s ALHFAM Re: Short hair for women Re: H-Costume Digest V4 #63 Re: Dress/Italy 1300-1600 conference Short hair for women Massive chignons Biblical costumes? Re: Picnic !?! varied ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 14:27:56 -0700 From: Sharon Bolton Subject: Re: Corsets & big busts In the movie "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" Barbara Streisand wore a goregous gown cut down to really show off her bustline. Was that dress an accurate style of the Regency period (or any other period?) or just Hollywood sex? It was wonderful, but I couldn't figure out where and how they worked out the support issue! Sharon in Phoenix ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 12:18:03 -0800 From: "R.L. Shep" Subject: Re: Where did the man's tie come from? Histcreatr@aol.com wrote: > > Thanks for the information! Having done very little research on the history > of ties myself, I offered the citation from R. Turner Wilcox because I had > just come across it a day or so before when I was doing research on coiffure > of the eighteenth century. My impression of the book was that the drawings > were excellent, but that some of the information was not wholly accurate. I > have read the reference to cravats in the past as well, but I'm curious if > there is a distinction between neck ties in their long form and men's bow > ties? Perhaps, since R. Turner Wilcox says the wigs were tied in a bow, the > reference is to a men's bow tie and not to the other? > > Bambi >From what I know the bow-tie and the neck-tie both follow along from the cravat. Again from "The Art of Tying the Cravat" (1824) plate C shows a number of different styles: "Sentimentale" looks like a bow tie, "A la Byron" looks like a floppy tie that Byron or even Mark Twain might have worn (but thinner) and "En Casade" is very definitely the fore-runner of what we think of as a neck-tie. If you find other things, let me know. R.L. Shep ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 15:02:55 -0500 (EST) From: Paula Moore Subject: Re: Short hair for women? On Sat, 9 Mar 1996, Bill and Glenna Christen wrote: > You wrote: > > >In "Who Wore What, Women's wear 1861-1865" by Juanita Leisch there are > >several pictures of women with a very distinct short hairstyle. This > only seems to be in the late teens/early 20's age group. > Was this a dress reform sort of thing? Most of the CdV's I've seen of young women with that hairstyle usually have the "athletic" style of dress, such as the shorter skirts and looser type Garibaldi shirts. I had also seen CdV's of children of both sexes with that hairstyle. Could there have been an age when girls began to let their hair grow? I too would like to know the scoop. Paula Moore 24th Va/83rd Pa pmoore@bgsm.edu Winston-Salem, N.C. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 14:07:19 -0800 (PST) From: close (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: Duplicated messages problem... Apologies for the duplicated messages coming from the account of alihoyer@inet.uni-c.dk. Heaven only knows what's going on there, but I've removed the account from the list in the meantime, until the problem is fixed. - -- Diane Close I'm at lunch all day. :-) If a Canadian Had Said It First (The Globe & Mail): "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance plus GST." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 14:57:15 -0800 (PST) From: close (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: Admin: Monthly reminders (unsubscribing, archives, etc.) To unsubscribe from the list, send a message to: majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com In that message, say one of the following as the body of the message: unsubscribe h-costume end (if you are signed up to the direct mail version) or unsubscribe h-costume-digest end (if you are signed up to the digest version.) Archives are available by using e-mail, from the archive server, majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com. To get an index of available files, send a message with the words: index h-costume as the body of the message, to majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com. Then use the command: get h-costume filename where "filename" is the actual name of the file, to retrieve the named file. Multiple requests per message are allowed. I suggest starting with the files CONTENTS and TOPICS. Note that they are spelled in all capital letters -- the server is case sensitive. When you get an index of files back, you'll notice that some file names are spelled in all capital letters and some are a mix of lower case letters and numbers. Request them exactly as you see them listed. I.e. if you request "contents" you'll get back an error message, but if you ask for CONTENTS you'll get back that file. The CONTENTS file is a list of all the topics discussed, split up by volume numbers. The TOPICS file is an alphabetical list of all the topics discussed, and a notation that tells you in which volume they can be found. So, if you wanted the file called TOPICS you'd send: get h-costume TOPICS as the body of a message to majordomo@lunch.engr.sgi.com and the server would send you back that file. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 10:42:06 +1000 (EST) From: Carolyn Fraser Subject: Dress/Italy 1300-1600 conference Greetings All. After Caroline Yeldham so kindly informed us of the upcoming Conference on Dress and Visual Culture in Italy 1300-1600, I wrote away to the Medieval Dress and Textile Society to ask if they planned on publishing the proceedings. Unfortunately they neglected to answer my quesion, but they did send me a booking form. The papers look extremely interesting. Among the papers listed are: - Dr Jennifer Fletcher The Dress of the venetian Renaissance Artist - Dr Mechthild Flury-Lemberg The Grave Clothes of King Rudolph I of Bohemia (d.1307) - Hero Granger-Taylor The Funerary Clothing of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (d1468) - Santina Levey An Exploration of the Italian origins of Bobbin Lace - Janet Arnold The Medici Grave Clothes of the 16th C - Dr Rosalia Bonito Fanelli The Textiles of Italian Renaissance Dress as seen in Protraiture If any of you know if and when the conference proceedings will be published, please let us know. And, if any of the authors of papers to be given at this conference have contact with this list, I would greatly appreciate a copy of your paper. Carolyn Fraser Brisbane, Australia ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 20:31:43 -0500 From: SyRilla@aol.com Subject: opps, forgot... I forgot to say that the corset that I'm making is a Eliz. /Tudor for the larger lady. Thank you for your time. Kimberly SyRilla ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 20:37:21 -0500 From: Booboopies@aol.com Subject: [none] he publication to which Robb referred in his e-mail to Fran is the Bulletin for the entire ALHFAM organization. The Historic Clothing Committee Newlsetter is indeed a pulbication. I know, because I'm the editor. It's a quarterly publication and is free of charge to ALHFAM members. Karen Mullian Co-Chairman, ALHFAM Historic Clothing Committee Editor, ALHFAM Historic Clothing Committee Newsletter ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 20:10:19 -0700 (MST) From: cwood@primenet.com Subject: Short Hair 1860s Recently I ran across the following reference to a woman with short hair in Col. Arthur Freemantle's "Three Months in the Southern States--April-June, 1863": "8th of May....I called on General Kirby Smith, who commands the whole country on this side of the Mississippi...His wife is an extremely pretty woman, from Baltimore, but she had cut her hair quite short like a man's. In the evening she proposed that we go down to the river and fish for cray-fish..." Of course, there is no way of knowing if Mrs. General Kirby Smith had been ill, or had lice, or whatever, but I thought I'd pass the tidbit along anyway, since it falls in the general time period that is been debated re: women's hair styles. One might assume if she was well enough to go fishing that had she been ill, she must have been mostly recovered, but I am remembering what they say about people who make assumptions... Ysabeau ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 19:15:29 -0800 From: gwjchris@ix.netcom.com (Bill and Glenna Christen) Subject: ALHFAM You wrote: >Fran - ALHFAM is the LIVING HISTORICAL FARMS BULLETIN and has to do >with their association. FYI, in case no one else commented (or care), ALHFAM stands for "Association of Living History Farms and Agricultural Museums." Glenna Jo Christen gwjchris@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 19:39:14 -0700 From: savaskan@electriciti.com (Julie Adams) Subject: Re: Short hair for women >Actually, after posting my last message I'm wondering if the front views in >Victorian photos are confusing people. When most of the hair is pulled to the >back and invisible in a front-view photo, this can give the effect of a more >modern short haircut. I do not know of any mainstream short-haired fashions >for adult women in the 1870s, 80s, or 90s. Certainly the predominant styles show long hair, but in Harper's there are numerous plates showing the backs of the ladies' heads. It is pretty obviously short and layered. And in the mid-80's there are really quite a lot of the plates showing variations of this style, probably going hand-in-hand with popularity of the tailored, often masculine sillouette of that period. The ladies shown in Harpers are clearly young women, not girls. I also agree with Glenna that Juanita identified the ladies wearing these styles correctly as young women. Another indicator is that they are wearing ladies fashions, not young girls fashions, and there is an obvious difference between the two in the late 60s. In response to Paula's quiery: Most of these ladies seem to be wearing everyday clothing, not any special type of dress reform clothing or athletic wear. Julie Adams ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 96 22:26:38 EST From: adair Subject: Re: H-Costume Digest V4 #63 to Sarahl, pattib, Linda Thompson and pierresRJW : Many thanks for your ideas f or my costume breakdown. I used prairie dust (which i found in our make up cupb oard)&hairspray as well a ragged edged and loose false linings only with my usu al washable hair colour, some baby powder and dressmakers 'chalk' for the less valuable items.Thanks for the inspiration!!! I am a learning theatrical costume r (who cares) who had to dress 23 people with a budget of $2,300 Cdn including labour, cleaning and accessories. We are proud to be challenged to do our best with little as a learning exercise at the university. also to SyRilla: I have a reference that refers to the beginning of pink and pa stels (and white) being credited to Marie Antionette. I can get the details if needed. Thanks again!! (I will judge my sources, stay out of fires and check t he archives for my next question!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 21:47:42 -0600 From: mkwhitak@facstaff.wisc.edu (Kathy Whitaker) Subject: Re: Dress/Italy 1300-1600 conference I am very interested in any information available on this conference, also - I would appreciate a copy of any details available. Many thanks, Kathy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 20:59:14 -0800 (PST) From: Allan Terry Subject: Short hair for women Glenna, I don't disagree with some of your statements. However, I still feel that since Leisch has not identified subjects for _any_ of her photos, basing statistics on their ages and other factors is completely bogus. I still feel it's very hard to accurately judge age from a photo or even looking at the person. This is a modern example, but I'm astounded by how some under-18 high-fashion models can be made to look mid-20s and very sophisticated. I have friends who look years older than what I know their ages to be, and also several who look at least ten years younger. Incidentally, all the ones who look younger (in face as well as figure) have engaged regularly and seriously in some type of exercise for many years. Several are or have been professional dancers, one is a competitive fencer, and one does and teaches yoga. Also, though Leisch claims to have studied "thousands" of photos, she never states exactly how many she used in her "statistical" study--which any experienced statistician would. _Whoe Wore What_ only contains about 280 photos. As for Severa's book, I'd be very surprised if the photos she selected were the only ones she examined. She does not make firm statements about garment colors. She merely suggests possible colors of about the same intensity that were popular for that type of garment when the photo was taken. Yes, I know very well that hairpieces were commonly worn, not just if a woman's hair didn't grow fast enough. The point I am making is: If a long-haired look was fashionable, a woman could and would achieve it, especially for a photo. Regardless of whether her hair had been cut due to a recent illness, or didn't naturally grow long. Woemn did wash their hair in the 19th century--just not as often as we consider healthful. Mrs. Beeton's recipe sounds like a dry shampoo, which would pick up some dirt and oil. And no, I've never seen any fashion pictures or textual references to adult women wearing short hair, as mainstream fashionable dress, in the second half of the 19th century. Yes, I think Harris's _Victorian and Edwardian Fashions for Women_ is a bad book. All her written material is highly derivative--to say it politely. On the rare occasions when she has thoughts of her own they don't make sense. For example, I don't belong to the camp that loudly tells other people not to wear their own vintage clothes. Individuals are not museums, the majority of vintage clothes are not museum quality, and most people have the sense--and the sole power--to decide what to do with their own possessions. Harris, however, urges her readers never to wear vintage--then publishes an entire book of photos on live models. She assures readers that the clothes couldn't have been affected. But don't her models perspire? Doesn't the grass (and apparently ocean spray, in some pictures) ever touch their hems? And the models are in completely modern poses, without appropriate foundation garments or accessories. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. If you need good photos of period garments, buy museum exhibit catalogs. Fran Grimble ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 21:08:34 -0800 (PST) From: Allan Terry Subject: Massive chignons Glenna, Maybe it depends on what you call "massive." Or what you call a "chigon." I have pictures of some very bulky, obviously false hair in back from as early as 1860. Fran Grimble ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 03:12:13 -0500 From: Kyle1115@aol.com Subject: Biblical costumes? Hi! I need some tips and advice on designing some good costumes for a few characters for a historical production (elementary school). We want to make the costmes as excellent as possible. Any ideas on: David (from David and Goliath). This seems like a hard one to figure out. We want it to be more then just a simple loincloth or whatever, but I can't figure out what would be good for him. Also, has anyone here had any experiance with Ancient Egyptian costumes and stuff like that? Please reply soon! Thank you! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 01:39:58 -0800 (PST) From: Conrad Hodson Subject: Re: Picnic !?! On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, Sharron Fina wrote: > Caroline et al., > > When DID a "picnic" become a thing to do? I can visualize it back to > about mid-1700's, but it just doesn't seem to mix with the earlier period > (probably a hangover of bad history classes). The only thing I can > mentally equate with a picnic is the "royals" on an outing because they > can't stand being in the drafty castle another day! It probably took a few > days to arrange a "spur of the moment" outing, too. I don't see the lower > class packing up a few barbequed rats for a quick trip to the forest or > the beach. Any input from out there? > > Actually, it seems to have happened earlier than the 18th Century. Your "drafty castle" remark is relevant here; remember, in the days before good artificial light and central heating/air conditioning, the comfort difference between indoors and outdoors was less dramatic than today. So long as it wasn't actually raining, snowing or blowing a gale, outdoors could be the most pleasant place to be. The earliest picture I could find on a quick search dates to 1387, from the Livre de Chasse of Gaston Phebus. It shows an outdoor "hunt breakfast", out in the woods with the dogs and horses around. They are eating at trestle tables under the trees, no tents in sight, and it looks like a picnic to me. (The tables shouldn't disqualify them; the last picnic I attended included lots of folding chairs, a portable TV and a motorhome or two) I don't know about what they did for lunch, but in the same century Renard le Contrefait commented "when the squires go get themselves massacred, the burghers go on swimming parties." Conrad Hodson ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 96 12:15:00 GMT From: Mrs C S Yeldham Subject: varied A quick answer to some questions and comments (I Hope) _Picnics_ I don't know when they started, or even when the name came in (the picture I was quoting is Victorian pretending to be medieval). There is a woodcut of Queen Elizabeth in the 1560s or 70s, dining outside, as part of a hunt, fairly formally - using a cloth on the ground, and I think there are earlier pictures of upper class people, with huntsmen in attendance, dining al fresco. You could even guess that members of the lower orders hunting, or poaching, or fishing, might well eat whilst out (tho' I don't think rats would form part of the diet except in siege or famine conditions! - period foods my passion!). Another occasion for informal eating might well be gathering foodstuffs or wood from commonland or unfarmed areas (berries, nuts, herbs, mushrooms were all gathered, pigs, goats, sheep, cows, geese etc were all grazed on commonland - guess why there were riots around enclosure of commonland!). However, I don't think I would call these picnics - in that eating in the open air is not the primary purpose, its just what happens when you are out all day for another reason. The outdoors might well be as comfortable as the drafty castle, but on the other hand, you have to take into account the medieval/early modern view of 'outdoors', which was generally that it was dangerous, wild and uncivilised. Thats why the gardens are all enclosed, often walled - like an extension of the safe indoors. I wouldn't expect to see 'picnics' until the view changed, and gardens started being part of the rest of 'outdoors' - like Capabiity Brown gardens where the division between the gardens, parkland and farmland is often a ha-ha, invisible unless you are on top of it (at which point be careful, because you might fall down it!). The other factor I would think necessary, is considering the outside picturesque - which is again late 18th century/early 19th. I remember seeing a wonderful programme about early tourism in the Wye Valley, and the change from seeing it as a wilderness that made travelling difficult, to a picturesque place worth visiting (it is very pretty). I've been trying to think of literary 'picnics', and the first one that springs to mind is in Jane Austen, in 'Emma' a party is made up to go to someone's house to eat strawberries, and they walk around the gardens, picking strawberries to eat. Does that count? Mind you, the meal they are served is cooked and, I think, served, indoors. Otherwise, even in Austen, they don't take picnics, they eat at local inns - as in P&P, or carry food with them, as for long journeys. _Boned Bodices_ Can I go on about how comfortable 16th century bodices are for large women again, please! They are perfect, wonderful things, just cut the normal shape but with more room at the front, according to the person you are fitting. I find putting in a side piece under each arm means you can get the right shapes for the back (the nice curve from armhole to back) and the front piece) Don't forget to hoick (a Kentwell technical term for lifting the breasts into position!). Don't worry about squashing the breasts (within reason of course) the bodice will support them and they don't mind being squashed into the cone shape (well, mine don't) around the torso. I usually reckon to take off about 4 inches lacing in (judging by the open bodice) without any trouble. If you want to minimise the amount of cleavage, then they can be pushed sideways in front of the armpit. I know this sounds silly, but I did it in 1605, trying to get the monobosum look, and it is comfortable and works. _Mini-Ice-Age_ I've heard reference to a 16th and early 17th century Ice-age before on the list. According to a geography piece I was reading recently, this was exaggerated, and we are probably only talking about a degree or two difference at most, not enough to make a difference to agriculture or behaviour (eg there is no increase in crop failures during this period, and there is in fact an increase in mention of delicate plants being grown in England - like peaches). The Thames froze at London in the early 17th century, as in all the pictures, whereas it never does today, but this may have had more to do with the rate of flow, the constriction of the river bed (narrower then), and the fact that power stations upstream from London now put water into the Thames a couple of degrees warmer than the river, thus warming the river. So, imagining Elizabethan and Stuart England as freezing all the time is probably a mis-representation! Caroline ------------------------------ End of H-Costume Digest V4 #65 ****************************** 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!