Betsey Potter, owner of The Costume House LLC, and my costume companion around LA last year, has a fantastic collection of travelling salesmen's catalogues from the 1880's through to the 1930's. They are substantial tomes, like old parish bibles, so evocative of the period. It's great to handle the cloths, so many options and such good, heavy, dense quality, particularly the coatings. We make nothing like it now and it only makes me think again about how pointless it can be to try too hard to recreate authentic early clothing for costume. Better to enjoy the effort of a creative response to a period. 

There's an interesting essay on the subject here.

I love this woman's costume. We dressed her for featured-background work on Bel Ami, she was dressed head to toe in original stock.

The hat is detailed here and comes from Aram in Paris, the two piece, bodice and skirt, is from Angels Costumes in London. The bodice is tiny, I saw it when I was in Angels last week and it reminded me of this picture. Often the surviving clothes we use are difficult sizes for us to fit onto people, this naturally controls how often they are used and extends their life.

It's always interesting to see real clothes worn as they would have been worn. 

A perfect fit and still earning their keep 125 years later.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Design Centre

Swatch cards for online research through The Design Centre at Philadelphia University

via TextileNerd

Classic Shoes for Men

Classic Shoes for Men. Purveyors of traditional shoes from the best shoemakers in the world; a very good resource for fine period footwear and an interesting site for information regarding the manufacture and history of rare shoes.

boots c1895, shoes c1930

Victorian Photobooth

There are some great images in a Flickr group right now - The Smiling Victorian. It's great to see the human side of people who usually look so staid.

Agnes Richter's Jacket

 

When we first talked about opening Shelf I was keen to do a project involving Costume Designers and prison uniforms, I thought there could be a really interesting exhibition exploring how people express their personalities and their character through the constraints of uniform and I was particularly keen on having Costume Designers, whose job it is to find and express character through clothing, work with prisoners and uniforms. 

Outsider Art was always something Katy and I were interested in. 

Anyway, the shop took a different course and I never really thought about that idea much again.

But yesterday I was reading this quarter's Selvedge magazine where there's an article about prison clothing and I was reminded of the exhibition idea and Agnes Richter's jacket which I had become aware of around the same time. I can't remember which website I originally discovered the jacket on, I read about it such a long time ago, so I rummaged around again this morning and found a few listings with information - here and here. 

Agnes was a mental patient in Austria in the 1890's and the jacket was standard issue of the time. The embroidery is beautiful and intense. Fascinating, unstoppable self expression. 

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NOTE: The jacket is in The Prinzhorn collection in Heidelberg, which is where the photograph originally stems, I haven't linked to the collection because the English translation isn't working today.

Hand Sewing C1890

Bodices C.1890

Aram Costume House, Paris. Originals only. Incredible, museum quality rentals.

Waist Tapes C.1890

C.1890 Cuff and Bodice Details

Lace Detail, like tiny tombstones.

Hooks

Viewed closely, this dress has been heavily worked; hand sewing, machining, alterations and mends. The fabric has also been re-cut from the original, earlier dress, into this 1890's pattern. 
Stories, always stories, that's what makes a garment more fascinating.

Interiors 2

The light in the costume house is dim so the pictures are warmer in tone than the true colours.

 

Interiors

Scrapbooking

Being a keen scrapbooker myself, this find in a church sale was not to be left behind, Edwardian actors and actresses, I'll get around to posting more scans or photo's sometime soon.