From: Gretchen Miller Date: Mon, 20 Mar 1995 19:13:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: H-Costume Digest, Volume 258, 3/20/95 The Historic Costume List Digest, Volume 258, March 20, 1995 Send items for the list to h-costume@andrew.cmu.edu (or reply to this message). Send subscription/deletion requests and inquiries to h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------- Topics: More opinions on combining vintage and h-costume Steel corset covers/"Freaks of Fashion" Boning styles for Elizabethan corsets Pantyhose and mini-skirts Romans bras and modesty Fitting an Elizabethan corset Period fugitive dye question ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 19:34:34 -0500 (EST) From: Gretchen Miller Subject: Re: Vintage List I agree with Diane on this one: vintage and h-costume are and should be two different lists: Believe it or not, many folks view h-costume as a scholarly list (a very friendly scholarly list) along the lines of the renaissance literature list, or the medieval women's history list. We're listed in several academic and professional guides as such. If I had subscribed to this list believe it to be such (and, so far, it has lived up to these descriptions), I would be very annoyed to find vintage/forsale posts arriving in my mailbox. toodles, gretchen ----------------------- Date: Mon, 13 Mar 95 19:47:13 PST From: aterry@Teknowledge.COM (Allan Terry) Subject: Vintage list; corsets I didn't mean to offend anyone by proposing almagamation with the vintage list. I merely thought it would be more efficient, since in my eyes (anyone is free to disagree) many people are interested in both topics. And there has been hardly any traffic on the vintage list since I signed up many months ago, for-sale ads or otherwise. I have tried to raise discussion topics and so have others, but this list seems pretty much dead. However, I really don't care one way or the other. Someone said I raised this topic on h-costume before, but I have no memory of doing so. (I never save old messages, mine or anyone else's.) Just for the record, I'd disagree with the implication (which may be completely unintended) that the activities of vintage clothing collectors are mostly limited to buying and selling. I've collected vintage clothes since I was in high school. I currently have over 700 items dating from the 1810s through the 1920s. Dating and identifying then has led me to do considerable book research. And studying their construction has given me first-hand information that has been very valuable in making reproductions. It's also interesting to see a reasonable sample of ordinary middle-class (but good-quality) garments and how they relate to period fashion plates. (They are usually much simpler, more practical and the colors often more subdued.) However, as I said, I really do not particularly care about the lists. I (and anyone else who wishes) can of course subscribe to both, provided someone is willing to do the work of administering both. Re the corset discussion: As has been mentioned, Thomas Lierse's information about the iron corsets comes from _Freaks of Fashion: The Corset and the Crinoline_, by William Berry Lord, an 1868 book reprinted in 1993 by R.L. Shep. There are also pictures of two iron corsets in Norah Waugh's _Corsets and Crinolines_. Waugh thinks they were for "difficult or deformed figures." I own _Freaks of Fashion _ because I think Mr. Shep provides a valuable service in reprinting older books and I buy almost everything he reprints. However, I admit to not having read it, just having skimmed through it. The Victorian era was early in the field of historic costume, and Victorian writers did not have the benefit of the many decades of research that have been done since. Thus I place little trust in their costume histories. I also feel that Mr. Shep's introductions to his reprints are sometimes cursory and that this book would have benefited from a more analytical one. I admit that I am now going to quote another source I no longer have in my possession, viz. a review of _Freaks and Fashion_ published in the _Cutter's Research Journal_. (I always cut out the patterns in this journal and file them by date, otherwise I'd never be able to find them and use them. A side effect is that the reviews etc. always end up on the back of several patterns.) This review was by Valerie Steele, an author who said she has done considerable research on this book and on a series of letters on Victorian tight lacing contained in it. According to Steele, _Freaks of Fashion_ was at least partly pornographic in intent. The letters on the pleasures of tight lacing, presented as letters from female readers, were written by the editor of the magazine in which they appeared. (As I recall, Steele said he once published an entire supplement on whips.) I noticed this tendency on skimming through the book. It might have evaded (I assume comparatively naive) readers at the time. However, we live in a post-Freudian age with lots of pop-science articles on sex in mainstream magazines. Without pretending to know anything about sado-masochism, some of the material in _Freaks of Fashion_ seems to me to be not hard-core porn by our standards, but of questionable scholarly intent. Stuff about pain turning into pleasure and like that. Re someone's suggestion that Elizabethan corsets with boning up to but not over the breasts were for young girls with budding figures: I suspect very few corsets survive from this period. Both Janet Arnold and Norah Waugh took patterns from a corset of this type, but it is the same corset. It belonged to Pfalzgrafin Dorothea Sabina von Neuberg. She was 22 when she died in 1598 (according to Arnold) so beyond puberty even in an age of late development. Fran Grimble ----------------------- From: Joaquinaz@aol.com Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 08:47:32 -0500 Subject: Tea Hi Kathleen! Where is the wonderful tea shop in Philadelphia? And are there any good fabric stores that handle Folkwear Patterns as well as good fabrics? The last store in Reading to carry Folkwear has closed. Thanks. Joaquina ----------------------- From: stella.nemeth@solar.org (Stella Nemeth) Subject: Pantyhose Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 02:37:00 GMT G>From: DGC3%Rates%FAR@bangate.pge.com G>Date: Thu, 2 Mar 95 17:08:52 PST G>Subject: More on underwear G>I am enjoying the underwear thread, because what we wear underneath G>affects how we move in our clothes, besides revealing much about G>social attitudes and how they change. G>Regarding the introduction of pantyhose, I agree with the 1967 date, G>because I remember first wearing them when I lived in New York G>(1966-68). G>No one has mentioned that awkward era around 1966 when skirts had G>risen to mid-thigh, but pantyhose had not yet been invented. The G>dresses we wore were innocent little shifts and trapeze dresses, very G>easy to move in, but modesty still limited our movement. If you watch G>Barbra Streisand in "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever," there is one G>moment when her stocking tops peek out below her mini-dress. I thought G>pantyhose were a godsend, especially after the latex pantygirdles that G>held stockings up under fitted dresses. No one mentioned it because it didn't happen. I bought my first pair of pantyhose in New York City (on Lexington Avenue) in 1963 or 1964. I didn't take the last 6 inches off my skirts until 1967. By that time you could probably have gotten pantyhose all over the country. At least one other member of the list has also reported buying pantyhose before 1965 in a different part of the country. I think that the differences in when we first began to wear pantyhose had more to do with our ages at the time it was introduced, just how much money we had to spend on ourselves and just how short we were wearing our skirts, than anything else. Anyone who was comfortable with stockings probably didn't even look at anything else until the stockings began to disappear. --- * CMPQwk 1.4 #1455 * All this fertilizer and no pony around here anywhere? ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 95 09:43:40 PST From: "cynthia" Subject: Roman unmentionables >>The best pictorial representation of this garment is a Roman mosaic from >>late 3rd century Sicily showing a woman exercising (with hand-weights) >>wearing nothing but a pair of "bikini pants" and a strapless band around >>her breasts. >Maybe it's christian era Rome, most Republic and Empire ladies >were *not* modest in that particular way. That sort of shamefaced >modesty didn't happen unitl much later. There is a long discussion of women & modesty in ancient Rome in the series _The History of Private Life_. I will only excerpt the comment "not even prostitutes removed these bands". You can find the Sicilian excercise mosaic in _The History of Private Life_, vol 1. There is another wall fresco or painting showing a pro and her john. --cin Cynthia@caere.com ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 09:42:56 -0800 (PST) From: Carol Cannon Subject: [SCA-WEST:989] Detailed costuming (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 18:06:50 -0800 >From: Slithytves@aol.com I'm interested in detailed information on costuming..............mainly women's clothing....particularly dresses. If anyone knows of good books or publications, please email back. Thanks! Deirdre ----------------------- From: Staylace@aol.com Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 13:39:42 -0500 Subject: Re: Re[2]: Elizabethan Corsets I doubt the steel corset covers were orthopaedic (for the most part) because the pictures appear almost erotic and certainly were meant to cover the actual corset and not worn alone.. As for the plaster corset forms: Professor Kurt Ingerl of Austria uses them both for fitting AND for artistic creations of period corsetry. An amazing man--his wife, Christa is a corsetted lady and both make an attractive couple at the annual authentic "Bal Des Gracieuses". This event is usualy held in Europoe BUT I heard rumor San Francisco is under consideration this year! If it only were true! Kindest Regards, Thomas B. Lierse Long Island Staylace Association ----------------------- From: Staylace@aol.com Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 13:39:53 -0500 Subject: Re: Steel corset covers While I certainly cannot fault you scholarly methods, I shall say that I have seen many, many pictures of steel coset-covers in many publications (and not just the one you mention). From where did THEY come? Computer imaging is only recent! HOWEVER, I agree that I have never SEEN one. What do you make of THAT? Comment? Kindest Regards, Thomas B. Lierse Long Island Staylace Association ----------------------- From: J M V Rayner Subject: Corset and the Crinoline Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 18:58:50 +0000 (GMT) Lord's Corset and the Crinoline definitely was intended to be pornographic, even if it causes little more today than mild amusement. I have an original copy of the book, which does not bear the author's name, or the pre-title _Freaks of Fashion_, but which states it was based on articles and correspondence in the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine in the late 1860s and early 1870s. That journal was notorious for salacious content which would be identified as slightly fetishistic now. The best reference on the history of this journal and this book is Kunzle's _Fashion and Fetishism_, though take a lot of what Kunzle says about the anthropological side of costume &c with a very large handful of salt. If my memory serves, Steele's _Fashion and Eroticism_ (Oxford UP) deals with the same questions rather more sensibly. As for the content of Lord, in no way can the historical details be relied upon. It was a very secondary source in the 19th Century, even if it is a very entertaining one. Several of our reference books cite the definitive source on corset history as a French book by Libron & Clouzot, from the mid 1930s. Needless to say very hard to get hold of. Does anyone know if this is actually a good, comprehensive (and most important, reliable) reference? Jeremy Rayner +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dr Jeremy M. V. Rayner School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Woodland Road Bristol BS8 1UG U.K. tel. 0117 928 8111, messages 0117 928 7476, fax 0117 925 7374 e-mail J.M.V.Rayner@bristol.ac.uk ----------------------- From: ehp648c@crusher.dukepower.com Subject: Re: Steel corset covers Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 15:37:10 -0500 (EST) > While I certainly cannot fault you scholarly methods, I shall say that I have > seen many, many pictures of steel coset-covers in many publications (and not > just the one you mention). From where did THEY come? Computer imaging is > only recent! After the original mid-Victorian citation, they may well have been hastily produced for the collector's market; I believe that the same is true of chastity belts, where many instances are Victorian forgeries. Betsy Perry betsyp@vnet.net ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 16:41:00 -0500 (EST) From: "K.C. Kozminski" Subject: Re: Elizabethan Corsets: duct-tape alt. Hi Linda, The Big problem with duct-tape is that is shrinks and distorts as soon as you cut it off the body, even masking-tape is a more stable material. If you'd like another method, you can try the "slash and pivot" method flat patterners use, I'll try to explain: Find a comercial bodice pattern close to your size that has a waist and shoulder-dart in the front and *only* a waist-dart in the back (you may have to use two different patterns). Make up the bodice in muslin and fit it to your torso, mark the "bust-point" ( the center of your breast) then take apart the muslin and transfer the corrected bodice onto a sheet of heavy paper or light card-board. Cut the darts out of the new pattern so they are open triangles. Lay the pattern down on a larger sheet of paper and pin it through the bust-point so that it can pivot. Draw around the inner leg of the shoulder-dart, the center front line and the inner leg of the waist dart, then pivot the pattern so that the waist-dart closes and the shoulder dart becomes larger, finish drawing the pattern-piece with this new configuration ( no bust-dart, *big* shoulder-dart). For a square neck-line use the outer leg of the shoulder-dart as the vertical section of your neck-line, draw your horizontal line where you wish, and close any remaining shoulder-dart. For a round neck-line use as much of the outer leg of the shoulder-dart as you can, and close the rest of the dart below the neck-line. Depending on the size of your dart (this is determined in comercial pattern-making by the size of your bust and the difference between your bust and your waist), the shoulder-strap of your bodice or corset may curve back towards your shoulder or at least be a bit on the bias. For the back, simply close-up the back-dart. Retracing the altered patterns onto another piece of paper is a little tricky, as you have to convince a slightly convex piece of paper to lay flat, you just have to finagle it a bit. I hope this makes sense, it's kind of like trying to explain how to tie a neck-tie without using your hands! Two books which explain the slash and pivot method quite plainly are "The Costume Technician's Hand-book" and Norma Holland's "Pattern-making the Flat-pattern method" both are still in print, and many libraries carry the former. I hope this helps! KC Don't think of it as aging, think of it as "Attaining Mythic Stature" kc/Roen who is, herself ----------------------- From: DENISE@HARV-EHS.mhs.harvard.edu Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 17:14:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Steel Corset Covers Can you give the citations for these pictures? What book, journal, article did they appear in? Where are the steel corset covers that are in the photographs? In museums? In private collections? Without primary documentation -- that is, items extant today which can be reliably dated, or written documentation from the period which discusses/describes the types of items -- it is not very believable that such items EVER existed, and seems very likely that they were the invention of a fertile Victorian imagination. I am familiar with most of the garments which have survived to modern time that are pre-1700, and I only know of 4 corsets, one being the famous steel corset cited and pictured in so many costuming sources. If you have citations for others, I would certainly like to see them. Denise Zaccagnino known as Lady Deonora Ridenow in the SCA ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 95 18:03:34 EST From: (David W. Rickman) Subject: Roman "unmentionables" Regarding the Roman "unmentionables" (in fact, not underwear at all, but excercise clothing), does anyone remember seeing a photo of a set recovered from an English well? I saw them years ago, in more than one book on Roman archaeology. They were made of leather, which is how they survived. Personally, since the only picture we have of these garments in use are by female athletes, I cannot buy the idea of a bandeau, or any other kind of undergarment until I see some evidence of this. David. ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 16:50:34 -0800 From: Alison Kondo Subject: Roman undies I remeber seeing a pair of leather "bikini Briefs" in the Museum of London, with a caption saying they were found down a garbage hole. Maybe this is the ones you described seeing a photo of? Alison ----------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 20:10:00 -0800 From: Chris Laning Subject: Wanted: Fugitive Dye To-HC@ Tuesday, March 14, 1995 I wonder if someone who knows more about dyes and inks than I do can help me with a slightly peculiar question (though I suppose anyone on this list could be characterized as...). I'm planning a small quilting project (not patchwork but plain cloth) which I hope we can demonstrate at the Renaissance Faire next summer. I am fairly sure that quilting (on plain cloth) was well known in 16th century England, and I have cotton cloth, natural colored thread and a wooden quilting hoop. (The batting's polyester, but it will be hidden). My question is: what can I *say* that I used to mark the design on the cloth? What I *actually* plan to do is to use a particular type of felt-tip pen (Pilot Fineliner green or blue, NOT black) which I've used many times and which reliably washes out afterward. But I have to come up with a convincing (if totally fictional) explanation in terms of vegetable dyes or inks. I've looked in my (very meager) resources on dyeing, but of course they primarily talk about the *good* dyes, the ones that don't fade and are bright colored. Most of the dark colors they mention are mordanted with iron, which means they won't completely wash out (like rust stains). What I need is a *bad* dye, something I can use in a pen to mark a design that will NOT be permanent--hopefully, that will wash out as completely as possible. I don't know - - maybe beet juice? Any ideas? ____________________________________________________________ O "Mistress Christian," a.k.a. Chris Laning | + Davis, California ____________________________________________________________ ----------------------- End of Volume 258 -----------------------