Clothes stuff
Nov. 2nd, 2011 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotSo I wrote that whole long post on the polonaise over on Mimic of Modes a while ago, and another on the circassienne. Just yesterday I was reading through the quotes in Cut of Women's Clothes (looking for stuff on stays and the lack of at the end of the 18th cent.) and I found a quote that makes me feel a bit like an idiot for poring over so many fashion plates. "... her dress in the afternoon is a polonaise trimmed with gauze; upon recollection, I am telling you wrong, for it is a Circassian, all over loops and tassels ..."
Have also found a magazine called "The Covent Garden Magazine or the amorous repository" that is basically the Penthouse of the 1770s. I got to it by searching "cotton gown" and wound up at an improbable story about two female travelers sharing a room at an inn. I'm sort of fascinated by the way the more things change etc.
I recently finished a novel, The Daughter of Siena, which was a romance in the old-fashioned definition - horse races, conspiracies, dungeons, (really obvious) long-lost sons, abusive husbands, chaste pining. It wasn't terrible and there weren't some of the costume errors that really irritate me, like gowns lacing in the back, but there were a few bits where I almost laughed:
- Pia is looking at her mother's gowns and describing their luxurious fabrics - velvet, samite, fustian! But samite is medieval (this was set in 1723), and fustian is rather heavy and rough.
- At one point, the duchess puts on her mantua and her gown. I don't know how that's supposed to work or what the author was thinking there.
- When Pia finally gets to go riding, she thinks about how she'd previously been weighed down by her "heavy chemise and stays and gown". First of all, she's still wearing her stays; second, if you are being weighed down by your chemise you probably have some sort of terrible wasting disease. The riding habit also had a divided skirt and she rode astride without any questions asked - I admit that I don't know about the divided skirt, as the habit's supposed to be ca. 1700 and IDK about Annian(???) riding clothes, but I'm pretty sure the fact that she was riding astride would at least be addressed.
In general, the book hit my narrative kinks, but the prose was ... well, I generally don't talk about prose, but it wasn't sparkling.
Have also found a magazine called "The Covent Garden Magazine or the amorous repository" that is basically the Penthouse of the 1770s. I got to it by searching "cotton gown" and wound up at an improbable story about two female travelers sharing a room at an inn. I'm sort of fascinated by the way the more things change etc.
I recently finished a novel, The Daughter of Siena, which was a romance in the old-fashioned definition - horse races, conspiracies, dungeons, (really obvious) long-lost sons, abusive husbands, chaste pining. It wasn't terrible and there weren't some of the costume errors that really irritate me, like gowns lacing in the back, but there were a few bits where I almost laughed:
- Pia is looking at her mother's gowns and describing their luxurious fabrics - velvet, samite, fustian! But samite is medieval (this was set in 1723), and fustian is rather heavy and rough.
- At one point, the duchess puts on her mantua and her gown. I don't know how that's supposed to work or what the author was thinking there.
- When Pia finally gets to go riding, she thinks about how she'd previously been weighed down by her "heavy chemise and stays and gown". First of all, she's still wearing her stays; second, if you are being weighed down by your chemise you probably have some sort of terrible wasting disease. The riding habit also had a divided skirt and she rode astride without any questions asked - I admit that I don't know about the divided skirt, as the habit's supposed to be ca. 1700 and IDK about Annian(???) riding clothes, but I'm pretty sure the fact that she was riding astride would at least be addressed.
In general, the book hit my narrative kinks, but the prose was ... well, I generally don't talk about prose, but it wasn't sparkling.
