18th century blog

Via Costumes, Cats and the 18th Century, a great online shoe museum called Shoe Icons. Go directly to the 18th century section here.

I was just contacted by this new site, Creative Spaces, which is like a museum community, and it looks like it could be really fun. You can search the collections of nine British museums and add things to your favourites, start groups and so on. I have started exploring it but haven’t tried all the features yet. The site isn’t completely finished yet and it doesn’t work perfectly, but I think it’s very promising!

You can see my profile here, and of course I started an 18th century fashion group.

Madame Pauli is a new Swedish blog with long and informative entries about different aspects of 18th century fashion.

Portrait of Mrs James Denham by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1789.

Here’s a great resource for 18th century portraits. Historical Portraits is a database of British historical portraiture and there are some wonderful 18th century examples among them. There’s not a huge amount but the photos are generally great and there was a surprisingly large amount of portraits I hadn’t even seen before!

Kvinnligt mode under två sekel by Britta Hammar and Pernilla Rasmussen (the same people who wrote Underkläder: En kulturhistoria) is the best and most informative book on 18th century fashion that I’ve read. It only exists in Swedish as far as I know and it covers women’s fashion in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The first section is a general history of fashion, with many pictures and fashion plates. The second part has examples of garments (from the collection of Kulturen in Lund) presented in great detail with photos and thorough information on the construction of each garment. The final part of the book contains many examples of different sewing methods and stitches used in clothing from these two centuries, and finally there are patterns of every garment presented in the book!

The only bad thing about this book is that it seems impossible to buy. I borrowed it at the library but I can’t find it for sale anywhere. If anyone knows where you can find it please let me know!

Vivien of Fancy Girl has reinvented some forgotten 18th century trim making methods with beautiful results. Visit her website for great tutorials on knotting and fly fringe.

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.

Antoine Pesne with his daughters, 1754.

Antoine Pesne was a French rococo portrait artist who lived between 1683 and 1757.

Antoine Pesne on Wikipedia, and on Swedish Wikipedia.

Antoine Pesne on Encyclopedia Britannica.

Antoine Pesne on Art Directory.

See more of Pesne’s paintings after the cut.

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Underkläder: En kulturhistoria is a Swedish book about the history of undergarments. A surprisingly large part is dedicated to the 18th century, and it’s a very interesting read. There’s quite a lot of pictures, and the text is very entertaining with lots of interesting quotes.

There’s a quote from the 1760s, from a fictional letter in a magazine, that I think gives a lot of insight to the question whether garters were bound above or under the knee. I’ve always figured both things must have been practiced while some people seem to strongly believe they were tied under the knee. From the quote it definitely seems like both were practiced, above the knee being the desired style, and under the knee the most practical. My translation from Swedish:

He reminded me, that beautiful legs are spoilt if the garter is tied under the knee.

Diary of a Mantua Maker is a blog that is incredibly helpful if you make your own 18th century clothes. There’s lots of very detailed information on how to make different garments and even information about accurate techniques and stitches, the kind of stuff I’m too lazy to properly learn about :)

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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Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century is an exhibition catalogue accompanying an exhibition at the Metropolitan museum in 2004. It displays 18th century fashions and furniture in different 18th century interiors. The clothes are displayed on dolls arranged in scenes.

The book contains lots of big beautiful photos, most of them filling an entire page or spread, and also some 18th century paintings. The text talks about the different displays and the theme of it all seems to be that fashion and furniture during the 18th century was all designed for seduction, both actual and some kind of “social seduction”. I think they may be exaggerating the seduction thing a bit, but it’s both fun and interesting reading.

The text might be slightly confusing since you sometimes don’t know what picture they’re describing. You might think they’re taking about a painting next to the text, when they’re actually talking about a display a few pages ahead. But maybe that’s just me. Apart from the confusion it’s a beautiful book filled with amazing clothes. I definitely recommend it.

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.

Click to enlarge.