Making Georgian and Regency Costumes for Women E-Book

Lindsey Holmes

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The Georgian and Regency period was a time of extremes in clothing, from the heights of the extravagant and decorative headdresses to the widths of the panniers. These garments were supported by a wide range of padding, boning, frills and flounces to create shape and texture. This essential book will guide you through the exciting fashions of the time. Suitable for experts and novices alike, it is filled with practical projects ranging from grand gowns to dainty bonnets, all presented with clarity and insight. There are ten detailed patterns, dating from 1710 to 1820 with five suggested variations to show how the patterns can be adapted; eight patterns for contemporary undergarments and seven patterns for accessories. Step-by-step instructions and photographs show how to construct the patterns and lavish photographs illustrate the finished designs. With general advice on the period, the role women played in it and the fashions of the day, this book will be of great interest to stage and screen designers, museums and heritage sites, costume players, re-enactors and design students. Lavishly illustated with 309 colour images and step-by-step instructions to show how to construct the patterns.

Leseprobe

MAKING

GEORGIAN & REGENCY COSTUMES

FOR WOMEN

Lindsey Holmes

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2015 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

© Lindsey Holmes 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 071 3

Dedication

For Geoffrey Herbert Starling, 1926 – 2014Much missed, granddad, teacher and co-conspirator in many a fanciful costume project, despite never being able to get a word in edgeways.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1

1 A History of Women’s Dress 1710 to 1830

2 Tools

3 Techniques and Fabrics

4 Pattern Alteration and Fit

5 Underpinnings and Accessories

Part 2

6 Project 1: Early Mantua and Masquerade Costume

7 Project 2: Robe Volante and Caraco Jacket

8 Project 3: Robe de Cour

9 Project 4: Robe à la Française

10 Project 5: Robe à L’Anglaise and Riding Habit

11 Project 6: Robe à la Polonaise

12 Project 7: Chemise à la Reine

13 Project 8: Directoire Gown and Circus Costume

14 Project 9: Regency Gown and Spencer

15 Project 10: Late Regency Gown and Ballet Costume

16 Patterns for Underpinnings, Skirts, Petticoats and Accessories

Notes

Suppliers

Suggested Reading

Index

Acknowledgements

It takes a lot more than one person to make a project like this a reality. Meet the team that made this book possible.

Photographer: Glyn Reed, Lovelylight images

Glyn’s first darkroom was in an unlikely place, being in the corner of a rocket launch control room on board a Royal Navy Leander class frigate. Some years later and after a few photos in Navy News, he moved to Kodak. Technical support for large photo processing laboratories and training of photo industry personnel followed. Some photographic gaps and training as a teacher in later life has brought him round full circle. Exhibitions, national broadsheet press, regular pages in Rowing & Regatta, commercial work with large companies and lately an exciting project with a four-man crew planning to row across the Atlantic.

The team.

Illustrations and Retouching: Stuart Holmes

Aside from being a very talented designer, Stuart also has the great misfortune of being the author’s husband. When it is possible to escape from various unpaid jobs for his wife, he works as a landscape architect.

Stylist: Heather McIlroy

Heather has worked in fashion and retail for two decades, covering styling, visual merchandising, window displays, creating garments and homewares, and even recovering furniture upholstery. She has travelled the world, and is passionate about interiors, design, architecture and all things fashion. On the side, Heather also coxes a men’s rowing crew.

Hair Designer: Toni Tatlow

Toni began her career in hairdressing at the age of eighteen, and joined P.Kai in 2011. She is passionate about creative hair-ups, and about the art of hair. In 2014 Toni reached the regional finals of the Wella Trend Vision competition, and is also the mother of two small boys.

Hair Salon: P.Kai

P.Kai Hair opened in Hampton, just outside Peterborough, in 2002. The salon owners, Kai and Jenny, opened their smaller city-centre salon in the Victorian Westgate Arcade in 2008. The salons have enjoyed continued growth and success in the Cambridgeshire area and beyond, and have been featured in consumer and trade publications worldwide.

Make-up Artist: Rebecca Jefferson

Rebecca is a freelance make-up artist and hair stylist. She graduated from West Thames College with a BA (Hons) in Specialist Makeup and Hair, which covered areas as far and wide as intricate body paint and avant-garde hair to special effects, bridal and period work. Web: www.rebeccajeffersonmua.com.

Proofreader: Peter Starling

Although Peter is technically retired, he chose to come out of retirement to work exclusively on Lindsey’s first book, a fact that has absolutely nothing to do with his being her uncle.

Models

Georgia Delve

Georgia is a professional dancer and model with a fervent passion for historical costume and culture. Her interest in the social protocols of dance lead directly into the fashions of the ballroom, and Georgia enjoys creating period costumes for herself and for friends. She is a regular (fully costumed) attendee at Regency balls and loves to bring her historical dance-based research together with her love of costume.

Alison Dunbar

Alison studied Arabic and Middle East Studies at St Andrews University, and currently works in Glasgow. As well as extensive travel and outdoor pursuits such as hill walking, Alison also enjoys the creative arts of knitting, soapstone carving and pottery. She has a special love for the Regency and Georgian periods and wearing the dresses her great-great-grandmothers would have worn. Alison also dabbles in period millinery and dressmaking.

Camille Lesforis

Camille is a recent graduate of Central Saint Martins University, where she studied design and practice. She is passionate about creating art installations, writing children’s stories and character creation and design. Her love of period dramas and costumes inspires her work, and Camille plans to pursue a career in narrative design, and inspiring the creative skills of children through story writing.

Rachel Parton

Rachel is a costumier with over thirty years of design and making experience in costumes and props. She is a member of a medieval re-enactment group and also volunteers as a Victorian costumed room guide for the National Trust. Rachel also enjoys trying out period recipes and crafts as part of her interest in experimental archaeology.

Kirsten Stoddart

Kirsten is an Australian scriptwriter and musician, and spends her working days in film and television production offices. She is a lover of vintage and historical clothing, culture and knickknacks, and enjoys creating historically inspired events and projects for work and pleasure. Web: www.kirstenstoddart.com.

Kelly Walpole

Kelly has been passionate about the Georgian period since the age of thirteen, when she watched the television series Sharpe with her father. Since then, she has been fascinated by the people, fashions and architecture of the Georgian period, which has inspired a creative path of reenactment, balls and country dances, and an impressive wardrobe of Georgian costumes spanning from 1750 to 1812.

Bryony Woodgate

Bryony is a professional model and football blogger with a degree in Classics. She lives in London. Although she is happy to model historical clothes for her sister Lindsey, she would rather be watching the football. Web: www.toffeelady.co.uk.

Sebastian

Sebastian is a fifteen-year-old Pomeranian. He has lived in Australia, England and Ireland, and enjoys sleeping, posing, making friends and modelling his winter wardrobe.

An additional thank you to the following people for their hard work:

Costume Assistants: Jo Sandbach and Rachel Parton

Runners: Wendy Adamczyk and Laura Clappison

Props: Edie Curtis, Heather McIlroy, Kelly Walpole and Brenda Capitan

Fabric: Whitchurch Silk Mill.

I would also like to thank everyone who supported me in creating this book, especially my ever-supportive friends and family.

Korina, Bryony and Kitt model the robe à l’anglaise with front opening bodices.

Introduction

The only problem with living inside a painting is the messy business of getting in and out of that wretched frame.

18 Folgate Street, Dennis Severs1

Author Lindsey Holmes in Regency costume with a poke bonnet.

Costume has been my world now for over ten years, and I make garments that are as historically accurate as possible. This includes using handwoven cloth, hand-stitched seams and corsets with hand-picked and dried reeds for boning. I have also had to ensure that the costumes can be quick to put on, worn over clothing, machine-washable and resistant to being pulled seam from seam by fighting children.

Clothing is magical; it has the power to give us a moveable, touchable glimpse of the past. Like a painting come to life, costume allows us to peek inside the frame and explore all life through dress.

From the first moment I held an Elizabethan stomacher in my gloved hands as a student, wide-eyed and hardly daring to breathe, I knew I wanted to work with dress. I have had the opportunity not just to remake period dress but also to handle and study original items in museums all over the UK and abroad.

All of this has been fed into my teaching practice and led me to write this book, which has been designed very much with the user in mind.

How to Use this Book

My aim in writing this book is to create something both beautiful to look at and easy to use. I also want you to be able to make your own costumes by following instructions and adapting the patterns to make the designs your own. This book is divided into two parts. The first half sets out the context, giving you all of the information you should need to decide what to make and how and where to wear it. However, as it is impossible to show within this book all of the changes that have occurred in fashion over such a large and varied time frame, there is much more to learn about this period in history. If you want to do so, you could always start with the suggested reading at the end of the book, which covers many of the sources that have inspired me.

The second half of the book is a guide for making ten costumes plus a range of undergarments and accessories. I have set out each of these chapters as projects including a little history on each design and its use, together with patterns and instructions for making them.

Naturally there is a crossover between the first and second sections. Textile techniques shown in the first section are used in practice on costumes in the second section. Wherever possible I have signposted this to help you navigate your way around the book and find what you need.

All of the patterns in the book are a standard UK size 12. Chapter 4 shows you how to adapt the patterns to fit different sizes. I have done this for the models in the book as they are a range of sizes.

My construction methods are a mixture of period and modern techniques. Wherever a modern process is used, I have tried, if possible, to give the period method. However, my main aim was to create projects that are easy to follow and garments that look historically accurate for the era.

For five of the designs I have adapted the patterns to create a different look. This is to show how simple it is to create something quite different by using the same pattern. Each alternative view is based on a contemporary image. I hope you will find images that appeal to you and that inspire you to develop your own designs.

PART ONE

Chapter 1 – A History of Women’s Dress 1710 to 1830

1

One has as good be out of the world as out of fashion.

Love’s Last Shift, Colley Cibber1

Alison in a green silk Regency style dress..

The long eighteenth century (1710 to 1830) was a period of great change, both politically and socially. Many aspects of life changed dramatically and all of this change had a direct or indirect effect on the development of fashionable dress. It is just as impossible for me to cover all of the fashion worn in this period as it would be to list all of the key social and political changes. Instead I have tried to cover a few key developments to give you a taste of the eighteenth century, especially those developments that had an impact on women and their wardrobes. Much of the timeline focuses on developments in Britain, France and the Americas, and I have tried where I can to reflect the key people and developments in other countries.

A Life through Dress

Dress is special, as our whole lives can be mapped through what we wear. Clothing marks each stage of our lives, and we are judged on what we choose to wear. Viewers read our development, accomplishments, character, position and even our cleanliness from how we look. In this way we are no different from our eighteenth-century sisters, but unlike us, for many eighteenth-century women, clothes were among the few possessions they owned, and often dress was one of the few things women had any control over. Dress was a rare opportunity for women to express their individuality. This was not restricted to women of means, as cheaper items such as ribbons and handkerchiefs meant fashionable expression was within the grasp of most women.