Your Wardrobe Unlock'd

We talk to a dress historian, portrait specialist and photo detective about her work, and present a competition for you!

What if you want to "standardize" your patterns and sell them? It's not as complicated as you might think... Jennie shows how.

Tips and tricks for scoring big on eBay - and introducing some less well-trodden auction sites for vintage and antique deals.

The Winterthur Collection  has many fantastic historical clothing and accessory catalogs. Here's the best  from 1850-1919

We've gone through our links, pored over the bookshelves and searched for the best in books to help you create a masterpiece for the Natural Form Era 1876-1882.

We've got an awesome trilogy of ladies' tailoring books by Charles Hecklinger and his equally amazing trilogy of men's tailoring books.  

Having trouble getting a smooth fit to a cuirass bodice or Princess dress? We've found period  fitting guides with step-by-step pictures to guide you through the process.  Want to know what options women had for corsets and petticoats? Check out a mail order catalog from 1883.  And that's just the free stuff, not from a bookstore!

Marion's got all the books and resources you need to create an amazing ensemble for the Revolutionary period:

The Must Have books and the Nice-to-Haves; A 1785 French fashion magazine with men's and women's dress, hat and wig fashions; and much more!

 

 

 

Last month I showed you how to draft the front, back and side back of the Seaside Jacket. This month, I show you how to true up the pattern, fit the jacket, draft the sleeves and construct the jacket.

I'll also share some key lessons I learned in this whole process, including a classic mistake.

Archive.org is an open digital library, without the international restrictions of Google Books. This month, we share with you a few of the great historical texts on a variety of subjects that we've found.

From 1820's fashion magazines to 1900's pattern drafting texts, to shoe making manuals and hairstyling guides, we've got a lot to keep you busy over the holiday season!

The Commons on Flickr is a collection of historic public domain photographs from a variety of institutions from around the globe, including the Library of Congress, National Galleries of Scotland and George Eastman House.

Marion McNealy shares some of her favorites from this collection from around the world.

Have  fun finding favorites of your own and exploring this interesting look at the past!

 

The best sources for cage crinoline supplies, corsetry, fine cotton fabrics for undies, and wide eyelet and cutwork lace for frilliness.

...to Elsabet Rowth one kyrtyll of worsted upper bodyed with blew satyn of bryderies...

The British History Online site is a wonderful source of first hand information about the clothing and material objects of daily life in Tudor England.

Come explore the riches with us! 

 

Details on where to get quality materials to re-create all kinds of extant ruffs, collars, smocks, shifts and chemises.

Did you know that the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has a large online photo archive of their collection?

Neither did I until recently, since it's impossible to find from their home page!

 I've found the back door to it, and sleuthed out a great many other museums with online costume collections!

Here's a wide collection of suppliers for just about any corsetry supply you might wish for, even legal Baleen (real whalebone)!

The HEARTH  (Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History) online library is devoted to books and journals published in the field on home economics.

It has a large variety of books on many different subjects, and I'll teach you how to get the most out of this valuable resource! I also share some of the books that caught my attention and a few favorite quotes.

This month we feature a great research site: Wikimedia Commons. It's so much more than a place to host pictures for a Wikipedia entry!

We'll show you how to use the site, demonstrating its vast scope, giving you some in-roads and showing you where to start when you're looking for ideas or references. No longer will you need to stare at a blank search box, wondering where to begin!

Starting this month, we will be having two websites of the month. One will be focused on business or suppliers, the other will be research focused.

This month's research website is Google Books, specifically the home economics, sewing and dress-making categories. We'll share with you some of the really great full text/picture books from days gone by that we've found and give you pointers on where to find more!

This month, we feature the blog, EnglishCut as our website of the month. Hear a classically trained Savile Row tailor share some of the secrets and the everyday realities of this ancient profession, including a half hour video in which you can watch him sharpen his chalk and work with the fabric.

 

This month, we feature Burnley & Trowbridge Co. as our website of the month.

I got into historical costume by admiring movie costumes. I was delighted to find, a little later, that there were people who'd written books on how to make those costumes, how to recreate them accurately, and I was most impressed of all when I realised that the clothes and the patterns have been, in some cases, preserved for us to enjoy centuries later.

A little later still, when I first got on the Internet in 1996, I spent some very late nights in my University's computer labs salivating over the websites of antique clothing dealers like Karen Augusta...