• Home
  • Shop
  • Completed Costumes/Impressions
  • Emma and Her Dresses
  • Patterns & Kits
  • Free Patterns and Instructions

Kitty Calash

~ Confessions of a Known Bonnet-Wearer

Kitty Calash

Tag Archives: style

Turn Me Round

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by kittycalash in material culture, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

1950s, Augusta Auctions, Clothing, party clothes, red dress, Research, style, vintage clothing

Gattinoni red brocade party dress, Rome, 1950s Augusta Auctions Lot: 155 October 24, 2018.

One of the best things about auction sites (when compared to museum sites) is that you get far more images of the objects, and often from unusual but helpful angles. This is true for furniture– good auction sites will post photographs of the undersides of sofas and desks, a level of detail museums simply lack the time for. For clothing, construction details aren’t always noted in the record, so we rely on images. This is where the auction sites can really be a boon: turn me round, baby.

Interior, showing black mesh boned corset w/ attached black petticoat. Gattinoni red brocade party dress, Rome, 1950s Augusta Auctions Lot: 155 October 24, 2018

I don’t know if I’d go as far as “boned corset” (well, I wouldn’t) but the boned bodice provides a lot of interior structure to this gown. The box pleats give the brocade skirt structure and fullness, but rely on the petticoat for the full silhouette. The interior structure probably didn’t provide enough support to allow the dress to be worn without additional undergarments– bra, panty girdle, even another petticoat– though it’s hard to say without knowing the original owner and feeling the dress. (Think of the boned bodices in late 19th century bodices: we know those weren’t enough to create the proper silhouette.)

It’s a wonderful look at the interior of a vintage dress, though, and one that makes replicating this garment (and look) so much easier.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Dresstory: The Green Eyed Lady

05 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Dresstory, personal

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1980s, college, Dresstory, fashion, memoir, personal, Saint Louis, style

Almost my dress, thanks to PhotoShop

I didn’t know then that it was called changeable silk; what I knew was that the skirt rustled when I walked, and spread out like a plate when I twirled. Irresistible. Probably homemade, I would have found it in a junk shop on South Broadway in St. Louis, or at the Veterans Village thrift store on Natural Bridge Road, a place white girls like me had to be careful (respectful) about going to.

Square neck, tight waist, full skirt, side zip: at one point, I was skinny enough to pull it over my head without opening the zipper, as long as I wiggled just right. The only time I clearly remember wearing the Green Taffeta Party Dress was to the KWUR Student Radio end-of-year party at the Women’s Building on the Washington University Campus. April or May of 1987, probably, though possibly 1986, before I went to Skowhegan on a summer scholarship.

My date was my on-and-off boyfriend, another sculpture major, working on his master’s if it was 1986, and newly graduated if it was 1987. He had a shambling walk, shuffling, a little hunched over, as if 6 feet were too tall for the spaces he occupied, though the city was large enough. Sneakers, jeans, an Army fatigue jacket, a smile waiting for reactions, waiting to deploy. Patrick was the son of a firefighter and a nurse, and I stole him from his college sweetheart.

Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas. Velvet, but very similar.

The green of my dress was like the green of his car, dark and forest like. We made installations together, layering found objects and drawings in the small gallery in the studio building where we worked. We drifted into a relationship: his girlfriend visited every weekend, driving up from the smaller college town where they’d met. Red haired, pale-skinned, in burgundy beret, Roslyn sat on a stool and watched Patrick work. Across the wide wood shop, I watched her watching him, and smirked. Reader, I was unkind. My friend Jane and I played Raspberry Beret on repeat every time Rosyln visited, hard to do in the pre-CD era, but we managed.

My style icons at the time were Joe Strummer, the Beastie Boys, and Lydia Lunch and when we weren’t taunting Roslyn with Purple Beret, I was inflicting 8 Eyed Spy on my studio mates. Reader, I was a snob. Paddock boots and ankle-zip jeans; white high tops and baggy Marithe et Francois Girbaud trousers; and the occasional 1950s evening gowns comprised my idea of campus-appropriate dress. My wardrobe came from thrift stores, gifts from my mother and grandmother (the Girbaud trousers), and practical work wear I bought with money I earned in the summers (high tops and paddock boots). In winter, I had a ca. 1950 Army trench coat with a button-in lining, which I insisted upon wearing to a Fortnightly dance in Chicago my senior year of high school. It is amazing my mother lived through all this sartorial humiliation, and amazing, too, that I was harassed as little as I was on the streets of Chicago and Saint Louis.

Wash U Women’s Building. KWUR was in the basement.

The KWUR Prom was in May, though I think of that evening as summer, so I would have needed nothing over the dress. I wore it with a gartered corset, black fishnet stockings, and Johnson motorcycle boots styled like paratroopers boots, leather soles slick from walking, and good for dancing. By May of the year I met Patrick, he’d broken up with Roslyn. We started making art together on a dare, and in our rambles collecting window screens, broken chairs, old medicine cabinets and other detritus, we grew closer, stopped being adversarial and became friends, and then lovers, until we were not. I wonder about Roslyn sometimes, and what became of her; I know where Patrick is, though we have not spoken since 1991. I broke his heart, for a time, after he broke mine, and now he lives where I began.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

I Fall to Pieces: Extant Garment Fragments

03 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, material culture, Museums, Research

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

18th century clothes, CoBloWriMo, fashion, Federal New England Fashion, Rhode Island history, Sally Brown Herreshoff, style

Bodice, painted Indian cotton, 1780-1795 RIHS 1990.36.27

Bodice, painted Indian cotton, 1780-1795
RIHS 1990.36.27

Once upon a time, not very long ago, when I worked in a historic house museum, I was asked to present at a conference in Worcester. I chose to talk about these fragments, and I still like to think about them. The delicate fabric was saved as a pair of sleeves, a bodice with a tiny peplum, a skirt.

Sleeves, removed from bodice 1990.36.27. RIHS 1990.36.25A-B

Sleeves, removed from bodice 1990.36.27.
RIHS 1990.36.25A-B

The pieces appear to have been part of a pieced-back closed-front gown with a matching petticoat circa 1785. I think someone decided (quite rightly) that the style was too passé for 1795, and altered the gown significantly.

Not only is there evidence of new sleeves being fitted into the gown’s armscyes, we have the sleeves-that-used-to-be. And my dear! No one is wearing sleeves like that this season!

I find these garments in limbo really fascinating. Was that bodice finished and worn with a matching petticoat? (Yes, there’s a panel of that left, too; what a lovely hem!)

Skirt panel, painted Indian cotton. RIHS 1990.36.33

Skirt panel, painted Indian cotton.
RIHS 1990.36.33

Who wore the gown? Was it Sally Brown, born in 1773? And did she alter it, or did her sister’s mantua maker, Nancy Smith? We can only guess at this point, as so many documents remain in private hands. The alterations are not as finely done as the original gown, so I think there are two hands at work here– whose were those hands? There’s always more to think about and learn.

In case you’re wondering, thanks to the Met, we can see what the gown probably looked like in its first incarnation, and then what the alterations were meant to achieve. (Link to the gown on the left; link to the gown on the right.)

Robe a l'anglaise, 1785-1795 MMA 2009.300.647
Robe a l’anglaise, 1785-1795 MMA 2009.300.647
Gown and petticoat, 1790-1794 MMA C.I.45.6a,b
Gown and petticoat, 1790-1794 MMA C.I.45.6a,b

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Making up Monday

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, History, Making Things, Research, Thanks

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

18th century, 18th century clothing, 19th century clothing, authenticity, common dress, Costume, dress, fashion, friends, sewing, style, thanks

From Jaipur, darling.

From Jaipur, darling.

Sometimes you’re a jerk without meaning to be, usually because you can’t see past your own limited self. I was that jerk on Friday, when my obsession with a missing package led to unfortunate words with both a supplier and worse, my sweetheart, about an unexpected length of fabric lately arrived from India. Would that my brain would work faster, for by the time I’d figured out what to make of it, the conversation had turned, and an additional 300 miles lay between me and the recipient of my confusion and dismay.

Despite my best intentions and resolve, I am a sentimentalist. This instinct sometimes conflicts with a devotion to honesty, for kindness often lies in elision. Confused? Short story: I don’t wear yellow, but a package arrived Friday with a dress length of printed Indian cotton, red and green flowers on a yellow ground.

“But Kitty,” you say, “Don’t you crave the hideous, the clashing, and the correct? You applaud Our Girl History’s choice of 1770s fashionable pink, though she prefers blue. Yellow is the haute couleur of the 18th century, fashionable everywhere, even in North America. You should leap at the chance to wear it.” (I was not thinking fast at all on Friday evening.) What made me bend my resolve– what will always makes me bend my resolve?

Petticoat fragment. Note yellow, with crudely printed lining. Wintherthur Museum 1959.0118.004

Petticoat fragment. Note the bright yellow, with crudely printed lining. Wintherthur Museum 1959.0118.004

Sentiment, of course, backed by research.

April, that cruel month, brought obsessive searches for Indian cotton print appropriate for the 18th century, as I looked at sample books and extant garments, searching for material to create frankly annoying clothing. Orange and green check with clashing Spencer and bonnet lining isn’t enough: I want to push my representation of the fashion sense of the past closer to truth. People in the past weren’t as matchy-matchy as we are, and their ideas of stylish, attractive, and fashionable were very different from ours. Loud was ladylike, and that’s a style statement I can get behind. Along the way, I ordered fabric in a pink and green (a departure itself) floral print on white ground, yardage now long overdue.

Textile Sample Book, British, 1780. MMA156.41 P34

Textile Sample Book, British, 1780. MMA156.41 P34

A friend has been dabbling in these same waters, and made up a new gown for Mount Vernon, satisfyingly loud and clashing with our modern sensibilities about the past. Our mutual friend, also at Mount Vernon, assisted her in choosing a dress length for me, and reader, I was confused and lacking when it arrived. But like any good curator in a social history museum, it was the story that got me. How can I resist a gift from a fellow enthusiast in a pattern chosen by my sweetheart, on the grounds that I don’t wear the color? Reader, I cannot.

Think of Cranford, of lengths of dress muslin requested and never received, and the sentiment embodied in that fabric. Think of women in Providence craving an India print gown, of lovers, husbands, sons, ordering dress lengths at trading ports thousands of miles and long months from home. Think of the affection and thoughtfulness embodied in textiles brought back months after they were requested. Complex meaning is woven into that cotton, giving this dress length interpretive meaning before it is even a garment.

IMG_6945
IMG_6946

Now what? Now I have to decide which century/event this gets made up for: 1812-1817, 1778, 1804, 1768. There are many choices, but with the meaning embedded in the fabric, I’m most inclined to make something I’d wear often– not that this is particularly housekeeper-appropriate.

And about the research you ask? Yes, small floral print on colored ground is documentable to the 18th century. While early and European, here’s an example of an Indian motif translated by Dutch makers for printing in Sweden. Rhode Island merchants traded in the Baltic, so given the early date of this fabric sample, its arrival in North America could predate 1788 and John Brown’s first ship to China and the far east trade. Possible? Yes. Probable? We can have a lively discussion, in which I will point out the Brown’s love of all things French and French translations of bright, small motif print patterns. The printing factories in Sweden ran until 1771 and produced at least two relevant prints. Would my successful Presbyterian farmer have bought something like this for me in New York or Philadelphia? Would I have worn something so bright and loud? Am I overthinking this? Perhaps, but yellow is a new thought for me.

With especially fond thanks to Miss N and Drunk Tailor, to whom I also owe an apology.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...

Frivolous Friday: All of Everything

06 Friday May 2016

Posted by kittycalash in Clothing, Frivolous Friday, Museums

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Clothing, Exhibitions, fashion, fashion plate, Frivolous Friday, RISD Museum of Art, style, Todd Oldham

All of Everything: Todd Oldham at the RISD Museum of Art

All of Everything: Todd Oldham at the RISD Museum of Art

Some days were made for a bit of hooky. This week, it was Tuesday– though how much can you consider a museum visit hooky when it’s the business you’re in? We took an outing down the street to the RISD Museum, long one of my favorite places in Rhode Island. The Costume and Textiles curatorial staff mount some amazing exhibits, from Artist Rebel Dandy to this latest, All of Everything: Todd Oldham Fashion.

Every time I go to the RISD Museum’s exhibits, I have serious wants, whether mochaware coffee pots or the Chinchilla Outfit– which my grandmother would also have coveted. There was a tinge of nostalgia in the visit, since most of us had lived through the 1990s, and recognized the styles that eventually leached into ready-to-wear from couture. Cropped sweaters. Shrunken jackets. Embellishments. Pattern mixing. Hey– I still dress that way!

Chinchilla Outfit (left) and Librarian Outfit (right)
Chinchilla Outfit (left) and Librarian Outfit (right)
Another outfit my grandmother would have loved.
Another outfit my grandmother would have loved.
Unknown artist Horace Vernet French, 1789-1863 Illustrations from the Journal des Dames et des Modes, ca. 1810 Engraving on wove paper, hand-colored Museum collection INV2004.506

Journal des Dames et des Modes, ca. 1810
RISD Museum INV2004.506

And legit it is, this pattern mixing. Funny how we stick to the same shapes and forms once we find what we like; so much of what I make and wear are variations on similar themes, no matter the century.

For some, dressing in the past is the only time they’re dressing up; their daily style is almost aggressively (or passive-aggressively) anti-style. But when the top hat comes out, look out: they’re dressed to the nines.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Email
  • Twitter

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Kitty Calash FB

Kitty Calash FB

The Etsy Shop!

Kitty Calash Swag on Teespring

Archives

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,928 other subscribers

Blogroll

  • A Most Beguiling Accomplishment
  • Afroculinaria: Michael Twitty
  • British Tars
  • Clothing the Carolinas
  • Drunk Tailor
  • History Research Shenanigans
  • Kleidung um 1800
  • New Vintage Lady
  • Not Your Momma's History
  • Our Girl History
  • Picking for Pleasure
  • Places in Time
  • Ran Away From the Subscriber
  • Slave Rebellion Reenactment
  • The Hidden Wardrobe
  • The Quintessential Clothes Pen
  • Worn Through

Etsy Shop

  • Kitty Calash on Etsy

Resources

  • Casey Fashion Plate Collection, LAPL

Sutlers

  • Burnley & Trowbridge
  • Wm Booth, Draper
wordpress statistics

Creative Commons License
Kitty Calash blog by Kirsten Hammerstrom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A WordPress.com Website.

  • Follow Following
    • Kitty Calash
    • Join 627 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Kitty Calash
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: