This article will introduce you to key vocabulary related to clothes and accessories. You will learn the names and terms for different types of garments and
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This is a vintage or antique parasol, that was in sad shape when I found it tucked away in a corner in an antique shop. I've repaired the fabric to the best of my ability, then proceeded to decorate it with over 17 yards of a mixture of gold and black braids and trims. It has a black handle that fades to ivory, slightly the worse for wear. The parasol measures 35" in diameter when open and is 23" in length when closed. For a more detailed account of the flaws and their restoration, please contact me. Whether the flaws come from moths while tucked away in the corner of an antique wardrobe, or from fending off adverse elements in an industrialized parallel world, is for your imagination to decide. This piece was purchased in October '08.
Rain or shine, your little tyke will love using this umbrella. He will be protected from harsh sun, wind, and rain. It opens and closes easily. Matching rain coat and rain boots available. 24'' diameter Canopy: polyester Handle: plastic / metal
Ever since I can remember I have loved the idea of owning and using a muff. I blame the Quality street tins my mother and grandmother owned for this. Actually I blame them for my entire obsession with costumes from the Victorian era. This is not mine, I have two of them but both ended up in a box in the attic after we moved, but this is one of the two version we had when I was little. The picture of a lady with a muff was on the side if I remember correctly. I really want to know but I am not to fond of the ladder leading up to the attic and besides that I wouldn't know in whcih box they ended up... **Cue hours a me looking on the internet looking for the right version, seeing all the other wonderful Quality street tins and wanting to have them all.** I mean it is hard to resist these beauties! Okay, getting back to the original topic which is Victorian Muffs and not Quality Street tins and where to find them... (or how to collect them all!) Muffs it is! In Regency times the muff tend to be quite large. Although smaller ones were used as well. source: http://blog.americanduchess.com In the 1830's they were still usually quite large http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/ But it looks like they got smaller the closer you get to the 1840's. This fashion plate is from 1837 and the muff here is quite small! source: http://blog4woman.ru/ Around 1840-1845 the muff became the size I prefer, big enough to cover both hand when they are laid on top of each other and the wrists. Pretty, functional and most important manageble. It seems that the ladies from the Victorian era had the same preference because it stayed this size untill the Edwardian era, when the muff encreased in size again. 1841 http://www.darvillsrareprints.com/ 1850 1860 Source: http://www.lapl.org/ 1874 source: http://www.loc.gov/ 1886 1891 source: http://archive.org/ 1899 source: https://hubpages.com/ 1907 source:De Gracieuse Now that I had established that the size I wanted to make was in use for most of the nineteenth centuries I have in my historical wardrobe. It was time to figure out how to make one! But as this is quite a long post, with lots of eye candy, already. I'll write about it in the next blog. Please note that I have been looking for documentation for the size, shape and sort muff I was planning to make. There are many more historically authentic styles and size. So if you want to make something else, don't be put off and do some research. You'll find that a lot is possible!
This detail of an illustration from the 19th Century Fashion magazine "La Mode Illustree" was engraved after a drawing by Anaïs Toudouze, a famous woman artist of the period who was at the centre of a talented family of artists and art critics in the Belle Epoche. Her father was the artist Alexandre-Marie Colin. Colin's three daughers, Adele, Heloise and Laure were "responsible for many of the most charming fashion-plates of the mid-nineteenth century," according to Vyvian Holland (the son of Oscar Wilde) in his book "Hand Coloured Fashion Plates." The married names of the three sisters were Anais Toudouze, Heloise Leloire and Laure Noel. Toudouze's husband was the architect and engraver Gabriel Toudouze. Her son became a well-known art critic in the circles around Emile Zola. And her daughter, Isabelle Toudouze, continued in her mother's footsteps as a fashion print artist.
