18th century blog

Here’s a link to a Canadian society that reenacts the 1750s, the Société d’Histoire In Memoriam. The costumes are very accurate and beautiful and there are tons of wonderful photos on the site!

Click the picture to see my photos from the day I visited the Lyss till 1700-talet event at Skansen a couple of weeks ago, plus some photos from previous years. I wore my new outfit.

This is a photo Kathryn Parker took of me last summer in the Echo temple in the Haga park.

I’ve been working on this outfit for a couple of weeks and now it’s finally finished enough to use. I still have to line the jacket and add more gold fringe around the “skirt” part of the jacket (peplum?), but otherwise it’s all done. It’s a late 1780s pierrot jacket from The Cut of Women’s Clothes: 1600-1930 by Norah Waugh and a simple sheer jupe made from no pattern at all. I’ll hopefully be wearing this to Skansen next weekend.

Does anyone have any tips on where to find really sheer fabric to use for a fichu, or know what type of fabric to look for? All the really sheer fabrics I find tend to look very obviously synthetic. I don’t mind if it’s a not a period correct fabric as long as it looks like one.

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Empress Maria Feodorovna by Voille, 1792.

I’ve been fascinated by Russian dresses of the late 18th century for a while. They have a pretty unusual style and are very beautiful. A lot of them seem pretty similar to the robe à la turque to me, with the “t-shirt” arms, but some seem to have a kind of vest, and the court dress I saw at the Fastes de cour exhibition had yet another vest-like style that I realised looks a bit different to all of these portraits when I looked at the pictures together.

Does anyone know if there are any books on 18th century Russian dress? Though preferably not in Russian :)

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I finally sorted through and edited my Jefferson in Paris screencaps. When I wrote about the movie earlier I just showed a few pictures I found on the internet, but after the cut are 145 new screencaps.

Edit: Fixed the screencaps so they won’t take so long to load.

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I just returned from a short trip to Paris where I visited the Fastes de cour exhibition at Versailles. It was an amazing exhibition and I was particularly happy to see a Russian court dress and the most beautiful yellow redingote.

Click the photo above to go to a Flickr set containing my photos from the exhibition, plus some more from Versailles and the Petit Trianon.

Edit: The exhibition ended a couple of days ago.

Yet another great museum database, IMATEX is the database of the Textile Museum and Documentation Centre in Terrassa. Lots of amazing 18th century clothes, especially jackets.

The Duchess

When I first heard they were making a movie about Georgiana I was so exited, but when I heard Keira Knightly was playing her I was very disappointed. Not that I have anything against Keira Knightly but I couldn’t think of anyone who looks less like Georgiana and I just couldn’t see her in the role. I was happily surprised when seeing the movie though. Even though it’s not the amazing movie I expected when I first heard of the plans, Keira did a great job playing Georgiana, and even though she didn’t really look the part she looked beautiful in her own right and was very charming.

The movie was more serious and somber than I expected. I was hoping for more frivolity, society life, parties and gambling, but the focus is all on the unhappy marriage. It’s not the kind of movie I’d want to watch over and over again, but it was definitely entertaining the first time. There are little inaccuracies and things left out and switched around in Georgiana’s life, but it’s all understandable for the purpose of the movie. Since it’s just about a part of her life, it has a bit of a non-ending, just like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

The costumes were overall amazing, lots of beautiful redingotes and jackets. There were some hairstyles I didn’t like but for the most part the hair was great too. I loved the scenes with many extras, there are lots of amazing outfits if you look in the background. At times the fashions tended to be a bit earlier than the time depicted, at least for a fashionable person like Georgiana, but that’s nitpicking. One thing that bothered me though was the scene where Georgiana’s hair caught on fire, and it’s revealed that it’s just a wig. I’m pretty sure Georgiana didn’t wear wigs, probably plenty of hairpieces, but actual wigs were not common for late 18th century girls.

More publicity stills and 164 high resolution screencaps after the cut!

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I came across the Spanish museum Museo del traje’s website and figured out how to search their collection. They have lots of beautiful 18th century clothes. Click the picture above to go directly to the search engine.

If you know Spanish you won’t need any help, but if not, I wrote “indumentaria historica” (a term I found elsewhere on the site and seemed to mean something like historical clothing) in the “Búsqueda General” search field and 1700-1799 in “Datación”. You can’t write directly in the “Datación” field, you click the “Fechas/Periodos” button and write the first and last date you want in the two “Año” fields and then press “Aceptar”. Finally press the “Buscar” button.

That seemed to get all the 18th century clothes, but if you know Spanish and a better way to search let me know in the comments.

I posted earlier about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 18th century European dress page, but you should check out their costume database as well. Click the picture above to go there and see tons of photos of 18th century clothes!

Click the picture above to watch a podcast about this dress, created by Rose Bertin and probably worn by Marie Antoinette. The dress belongs to the Royal Ontario Museum but will apparently be exhibited at Versailles next year March 16 to June 14, as part of an exhibition about 17th and 18th century court dress. I’ll hopefully visit!

The website of the upcoming movie The Duchess is up with lots of photos and information. My favourite thing about it is that many of the costumes are presented with detailed photos and information, I also liked the “discover” section. I have mixed feelings about this movie but mostly I can’t wait to see it! Click the picture to go to the website.

I found a Journée Grand Siècle flickr group. Click the picture to go there.