18th century blog

A while ago I posted about the winter ball at Château d’Ursel, and they just e-mailed me some photos from the event. Go here to see more.

Yesterday I went to Gustafs skål’s Twelfth night ball, and I had a wonderful time! I also met Isis, who had a fantastic foresty costume, and Madame Berg, who looked amazing, for the first time. I forgot to take any photos but my boyfriend took a few of my costume when I got back home. I wore the polonaise with a new but unfinished pelisse (the hood trim and armholes are missing). I was planning to make a matching muff as well but didn’t have time.

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A couple of days ago I went to Kina slott (the Chinese pavilion at Drottningholm) to take some photos of my robe à la polonaise since I realised it unintentionally matches the colours of the palace exterior. My boyfriend Henrik was the photographer.

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In London I also visited the Museum of Childhood, which had a few 18th century children’s clothes on display, and a doll from 1780 with a full set of undergarments and even a tiny chatelaine.

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I was just in London and among other things I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum. There are plenty of 18th century clothes on display at the museum, scattered into many different exhibitions, and I took photos of most.

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I just finished this polonaise and I’m so happy with it! I have to do one small alteration to improve the fit of the “bodice” but otherwise it’s done.

Edit: The photos are taken in my bedroom.

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From Tidsfördrifvet, the blog of 18th century society Gustafs skål, comes this great list of 18th century clothing items from Göteborgs stadsmuseum. Click the picture to go there.

A couple of days ago I visited the new exhibition at Nordiska museet, Modemakt or Power of fashion. There wasn’t a huge amount of 18th century clothes but the ones they did show were really wonderful.

The exhibition has it’s own website complete with a database containing pictures and information about most of the garments on show. Continue reading to see my own photos from the exhibition.

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Pockets of History is a great site with pictures of and information about tie-on pockets, many of them from the 1700s.

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!

Photos from the day I visited the Lyss till 1700-talet event at Skansen a couple of weeks ago. I wore my new outfit.

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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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