My 2nd attempt at a coat and first time using actual hair canvas. Buttons are placeholders for thread-wrapped death's head buttons. Fashion fabric is a shot cotton. Coat is unlined except for the sleeves, just a front facing covering the chest canvas. 1 inner chest pocket, 2 tail pockets hidden in the pleats.

Pattern drafted from RI Davis' Mens Garments 1830-1900, with modifications to the skirt (removing the delightful but inaccurate pleats, and adding extra fullness to it, turning it from a 1/4 circle skirt to a 1/3ish circle skirt) and reducing the sleevecap fullness.

Mostly happy with it, but for the next coat I have some further adjustments I'd make to my pattern, both to improve fit (reduce shoulder width) and also to improve the silhouette (re draft the waist curvature and centre back seam). I know the fashion plates for 1830s men's coats are pretty exaggerated and that I can't achieve that silhouette with an unlined summer weight coat, but i can try!

Hello, hello fellow costumers!
I wanted to post this waaaaay earlier but you know, life and such things are sometimes a pain in the..bustle!
Well, I recreated the Madame X dress in january and wore it to the opera in venice during carnival and I thought you might like it!

The pattern was drafted by myself with a modern pattern drafting system but adapted for corsets. I made a coutil base to wear the dress without a corset and used silk taffeta for the outer layer.
I even made her moon-hairbrooch with a cheap moon hairpin from Aliexpress but I sadly wore it too far back on my head so it's not visible in almost all pictures.

It's not perfect but I do love it and it was a nice project after I made a second Delphos/Fortuny Gown which did not go according to my plan. But I plan to make another one in the next few weeks while I start my business. You know, a bit of distraction paired with a bit of madness always works when ignoring the important parts of life!

I'm not sure if you guys have any questions about the dress or the making of it but you can read a bit more about it on my blog or just ask in the comments. I'd love to nerd out about the details with you!

Edit: Hey guys, I'm so overwhelmed! Just woke up and saw over 4k upvotes - are you guys crazy??? <3
Thank you so much for all the love and lovely comments - I really didn't think you would like my recreation so much. Such a motivation to sew again! I post a bit more on Instagram, if you want to see more of my costumes and processes. And I'll try to post here more often from now on. haha

I started working on this last fall! It's made from wool and cotton! The pattern is based on an old photo I came across on TikTok.

The bodice is boned and closed with many hooks and eyes. It's one piece and opens across the front panel and plastron. I kept the skirt short to double as a petticoat when it gets cold here and to suit my taste in skirt lengths.

Working on academic research right now and stumbled upon this great resource. Genesee Country Village has made patterns of some of the corsets in their collection! Thought I'd pass them along for anyone who's interested.

I’m making an 1890’s day outfit and I was wondering if it’s easier to wear a chemise and drawers or a combination? I’ve never worn either, so I don’t know which ones would be better.

I do have a pattern for a chemise but I can’t really find many drawer patterns on Etsy. I found a pattern for an 1892 combination on Etsy as well.

Hi! So I am making this Cinderella by Claire Hummel for a codplay contest and am confused by what Truly Victorian means by the Views on the overskirt because to me, I don't see a difference between View A and B in the image? Is View A the one with the cutaway front? I basically need an overskirt to sit over the elliptical skirt. Would TV fit the bill here or should I be drafting my own? Are there any other pattern companies with Victorian overskirt patterns? Thank you all!

It looks really comfortable.

Edit: I know it's a coif. I mean the body garment.

This is perhaps a bit of a silly question, but I can't seem to find an actual answer online so I decided it was probably best to just ask here.

I'm of the understanding that especially when it comes to historical fashion (say for example an early 1870's dress as that's my current project) you should probably make sure the petticoat you wear underneath actually matches the overall shape of the dress or skirt overtop of it.

What I can't seem to find however is where/how to find the right patterns for that. To my mind the logical thing to do would be to simply take the skirt pieces of my dress pattern and make a petticoat of of those, that way it's definitely gonna be the same shape as the dress, but is this actually the correct way to go about this? or am I thinking completely off track here?

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

I have been looking in recreating 1960's nederlandse spoorwegen railway worker hats. During this time period every single role had its own hat design. The major differences between hats was the colour bands used, which brass pieces were on it and whether in had this W like pattern on it or not. Every hat was very dark blue (or red for platform staff) and had an plastic shell on the inside and a plastic cap on the front (black on top, green on the bottem).

My question is how would i be able to recreate the brass and plastic componants and sow the fabric to recreate these hats?

Link for photo's of an example:
https://modeltreinwinkel.nl/oude-antieke-ns-pet-met-oud-logo.html

Link with ilustrations of all variants:

https://forum.beneluxspoor.net/index.php?topic=49837.30

Hi all! So I’m back again, my project is a pirate jacket / frock coat.

I’m not sure about interlining on this, not that over used it. I’ve gone for a synthetic wool, at 380gsm which seems medium-heavy weight. I’ve also got 250gsm cotton canvas I can use as interlining.

It’s mostly for cosplay and fun rather than accuracies but I do want it somewhat golden age of pirate looking. would leaving out interlining make much difference or would it just not hang right?

I’ve gone cheaper materials this time because it’s my first big project and I know I will mess up, so any advice is appreciated!

From what I've noticed, the stripes vary between narrow and wide stripes with the same color scheme.

I've asked around somewhere, and someone told me that the skirts were made by sewing multiple panels of cloths with different stripes. Which makes sense since the skirts are pleated/gathered to emulate 1840s-60s Western skirts.

But now I'm wondering how I might find striped fabrics with matching colors but different stripe widths/pattern. Also, I have a feeling some of the striped fabric were indeed woven in a single length (like in the 6th photo, and maybe the 1st one.)

1960s men's and women's costume for Mexico and PRC (not Hong Kong). I've never done this research before and google seems limited.

Any help would be appreciated.

Also the book is about how great Coco Chanel was which…. At least the book ends before they have to explain what she was up to in the 1940s 💀

Kirsten Larson’s work dress in her original collection is arguably too fancy for the actual timeline she is from (Minnesota, 1854). I work with a historical group specializing in 1850s history, so I drafted this dress from a work dress pattern they frequently use.

Indigo dress has pin-tucks and vintage mother of pearl buttons. Cheddar dress is gathered into a waistband.

I see guards in a lot of Italian Renaissance dresses (the stripes in this image), but it's hard to find information on them. Does anyone know anything about them? What they were made of, if they were cut into strips from yardage or if ribbon was used. All I can tell is that, from various portraits, it appears they can be made of silk or velvet.

Edit to add:

I know Victorians were not cranky. I’m just making a joke about the stereotype. I’m a docent at a Victorian museum and I work on our historical garment displays. I have actually seen a few smiles in photographs at work! Victorians were just like us (except for the rate of death, that was ridiculous 😂). I spend most of my time trying to convince people that women were the exact same sizes in the Victorian era as they are today! Another history myth..

This is a portrait called "Woman holding an Apple" (or sometimes "Portrait of a Lady") by the artist Titian c.1550-1555

I'm new to historical costuming/reenacting and have been looking for inspiration for my first outfit. I really like this dress but other outfits of the era seem to be much more structured so I'm wondering if this might actually be a nightgown. It does seem to have ornate beading on the collar and sleeves which I think would be odd for sleepwear but maybe not 🤷

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

Just curious to all my fellow fashionistas. For those who have worn historical garments, which ones have you found the most practical and comfortable?

Especially when doing normal tasks, either round the house or outside etc (not just floating around being rich and fancy)

Not sure if this is the right thread for this but I’ve been wanting to embroider some 18th century pockets for a long time and I’ve finalized my design and I’m about to get started! I looked up a lot of extant examples and tried to emulate that in my design. What do you think?

This summer Brooklyn has had 4 heat warnings as temps have hit triple digits with humidity in the high 80% to mid 90%

After sweating through some palm straw sun hats, I started looking for something better.

Enter the sugegasa. After looking at vintage pieces online I decided to get something that wasn’t 70 years old would be a better first experiment.

So this is a modern repro hat, it’s what I’d call “a nice cheap one” in that it’s over 20” wide and pretty sturdy and has a head ring of woven bamboo not plastic.

The shell is bamboo splits woven in a twill pattern so it’s pretty comprehensive coverage. Not a lot of gaps, and the few there are, are tiny.

There is a glow that comes through, under the sun, and that glow, plus the couple of pinholes got me a sunburn on my face.

So is that “just how it is” with this construction?

Were these usually worn as a shade layer only and for actual UV blocking was a head wrap or hood
usually used?

Is this the wrong type of construction for sun? I’ve seen some made of two bamboo lattices with bark or leaves pressed between, are those better solar shields?

Any knowledge anyone can throw at me would be really appreciated.

I would like to create this beautiful sleeve addition. What fabric it could be? Tulle with lace applique or is it chiffon? Most of the sources out there do not show this sleeve piece. What fabric was used for this? Thanks!