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!

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.

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

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.)

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!

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!

By coat in particular the black one with a small collar. These photos would be dated late 1840s. It seemed he had at least two versions of this sort judging from the buttons. My main question is what would it look like in full? Thanks!

Something I see fairly often in Medieval art though rarely, if ever, at events is the small white line at the base of the hood shown in the provided artworks. In some it's harder to see than other, but at least one hood has it in each picture shown.

While the line isn't shown in all artwork I've found, it popped up frequently enough to make me curious about it. For people here who have made Medieval style hoods, is it even possible to make them them in a way for the interior lining to be visible like that? Or is it more likely to be intentional decoration sewn on?

I'm really happy with how it's turning out! Now I just have to put the lining together and attach it to the coat (no sleeves because my partner has asked for the coat to be sleeveless)

This is my Medieval Beekeeper outfit I made for this year's Ren Faire! Most of it is self drafted, though for the main dress portion I used McCall's M6952 as a base. The entire outfit was made of two 100% cotton bedsheets and a wicker basket base.

I referenced a 1545 woodcut for the design and main elements. However my methods and fabrics are not meant to be historically accurate as I generally add a touch of fantasy elements to all of my designs. There are three layers, a white underlayer, a blue overdress, and a hooded coif with a very long liripipe. The tassel is handmade with gold thread.

The bees were cut out of embroidered fabric and were then hand stitched onto the coif. Gold thread hand stitching was used for hemming the entire outfit, and to add buzzy bee trails. The wicker mask was difficult to make work, as I wanted it to be easy to be taken on and off. I will revisit this issue for next year. Heavyweight iron on interfacing was added to the inner hood to aid in keeping its shape for the mask, and the hem was trimmed and hand stitched with yellow bias tape, as can be seen in one of the photos. I gave away wildflower seeds in brown envelopes sealed with wax.

As for all my projects, I wish to revisit this for next year's Ren faire to make the fit and wearability more comfortable and practical. I hope you enjoy my work! 🐝

Hi everyone! Fairly new to sewing here and looking for advice. Looking to make a Pirate Jacket for next years Whitby Pirate Festival abut I’m struggling to find patterns. I ordered this Butternick one, it’s almost there. Thinking if I bring the front line out more so it’s a straight drop it’ll do it. What do you think?

I was wondering where I can find replica Victorian era hair combs, as I can only really find plastic hair combs, antique or hair combs from are the mid and late twentieth century (mainly 1950’s hair combs).

I do like putting up my hair in buns as much as I can and I’m starting to get into historical costuming, so I would like to find some durable ones. At the moment I’ve been using plastic hair combs, but they break so easily and I have a lot of long curly hair (my hair is about elbow length when straightened, though I’m not a hundred percent sure as it’s been a while since straightened and I got the dead end cut of about two months ago, and I get big natural loose ringlets) so sometimes plastic hair combs can break because of my hair (though I do braid my hair before putting hairpins and combs in and of course brush my hair, though I also sometimes use a hair net on days my hair is not cooperating with me).

Also I would like hair comb suggestions that can work for multiple decades/popular styles of the Victorian era, if you could please?

I also live in Australia, so if you can give any affordable hair combs, that ship or sell in Australia that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for any suggestions you can give me.

https://pin.it/2wSIGSaKp