#1790's

[fripperiesandfobs]

Waistcoat, 1795-1800

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art

[vincentbriggs]

I finished these breeches last month, but only got around to getting pictures of them on me yesterday. (Pardon the horrible lighting - I finally have a wall to film in front of, but not a light for it yet. I do have a fancy pedestal though!! Got it for a very good price at a recent estate sale! When not being dramatically leaned against it's useful for holding my keys and wallet so I don't forget them.)

These had been in The Pile for about 4 years, so there are some things that aren't quite as well done as I'd do them now, and I regret the fabric choice, but I'm glad to have them done. I didn't have any black breeches, and wanted to get these finished before filming the outfits for my shirt video. (Which I'm still editing and it's taking forever.)

It's the same loosely woven black wool I used for that black & white coat I made in 2019. I don't expect it to wear very well, which is why I added so much machine topstitching, and did the button covers in a different wool.

[ripplefactor]

'Work'd by Eunice Hooper in the Ninth Year of her Age' .. And Bright Phoebus in his chariot, Marblehead, 1790's, Huntington Library Collection ..  @rickinmarblehead.

[vinceaddams]

Textiles too!

Embroidered silk waistcoat, c. 1785-90. Sold by Meg Andrews and now in the V&A Collection.

Printed cotton fragments, c. 1770-90, Cooper Hewitt Collection.

After the first manned balloon flights, ballooning became a popular obsession, especially in its homeland of France. One man wrote,

Among all our circle of friends, at all our meals, in the antechambers of our lovely women, as in the academic schools, all one hears is talk of experiments, atmospheric air, inflammable gas, flying cars, journeys in the sky.

Balloons were everywhere, especially on consumer goods. It seemed that everybody wanted images of balloons in their homes.

They adorned snuffboxes:

Watches:

and tea caddies:

Even far from France, you could find images of balloons everywhere. In Japan, a country that wouldn’t have its own manned balloon launch for almost a century, you could buy a hot-air balloon plate, manufactured in 1797:

{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}

[yeoldenews]

Yet another selection of some of the better names I've come across in Regency era newspapers recently.

[dimity-lawn]

A collection of memes I made after visiting Michilimackinac and Fort Mackinac in May, 2023.

Yes, the photo in the last meme is real. I don’t know who carved that into the wall in one of the lookout posts at Fort Mackinac, but I took the photo.

@ivory--raven

[vinceaddams]

Oooh I'd never seen that quilted one before, it's gorgeous! And it definitely looks like it was made from part of a larger garment, probably an 18th century quilted petticoat. The quilting design is huge and doesn't line up with the shape of the waistcoat at all.

(Fourth quarter of the 18th century, The Met.)

These late 18th century breeches in the Fashion Museum at Bath are another fascinating example of the same thing!

Napoleonic era men’s vests, France

Top row: 1800-1815 (1) (2) (3)

Middle Row: 1790-1810 (1), 1795-1805 (2) (3)

Bottom Row: 1805-10 (1), 1800s (2) (3)

Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

[artschoolglasses]

Sampler by Rebekah S. Munro, American, 1791

From the Met Museum

[fripperiesandfobs]

Gown ca. 1790-1810

From Cora Ginsburg

[vincentbriggs]

These yellow silk breeches were technically my last project of 2022, but as soon as I finished them I realized I'd made the fall a couple centimetres too high and I needed to shorten it and redo the buttonholes on the corners.

It was an easy alteration that only took a few hours, so naturally I put it off for 6 months.

I still need to make a couple of minor changes to my pattern to make it more accurate to late 18th century breeches, but I changed some stuff before sewing this version up, so it's much closer than it was before.

[vinceaddams]

I see some people are tagging this with #embroidery, but it isn't, it's brocade! The way you can tell is that the floats (the long bits of thread on the surface) in the woven motifs are all perfectly lined up in one direction, whereas if they were embroidered they would go in a lot of different directions depending on which part of which little shape they were in.

If you zoom in you can also see that the edges also have a sort of pixelated look to them, with some long straight edges on some of the gentler curves, and if they had been hand stitched instead of woven then the individual thread placement would look a bit more organic.

Reticule

c.1799

France

LACMA (Accession Number: M.83.281.2)

[breezingby]

Founded 234 Years ago, by Alexander Hamilton.

Alexander Hamilton was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 during George Washington's presidency. Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant.

Died: July 12, 1804 (age 47 years), Greenwich Village, New York, NY

[misforgotten2]

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #491

Cover by Frank Frazetta -- 1970

[verdraaidzaamheid]

I made Elizabeth Bennet's dress from Pride and prejudice 2005. The dress itself (undergarments and mock up not included) was made in only 5 days and it must be my personal record for historical costuming. (I work a fulltime job and also try to maintain a social life, so sewing time is limited.)

Naturally there are some fit issues because of the limited time (armscyes are too small and the sleeves don't quite fit in them), and I didn't go for a screen accurate version. Just something that resembles the movie costume so it's recognizable. I also wore my boots underneath, just as Keira Knightly in the movie.

Overall I'm very happy with the result. I love how the skirt came out: the little train, the small dip on the waistline in the back, the way it falls...

[agoodflyting]

Why Aziraphale is completely ridiculous in the Bastille scene (and I love him so much for it)

A while ago I posted a comparison of Aziraphale and Crowley's costumes in the 1793 flashback in Good Omens and I wanted to add these little tidbits. (Because they haunt me.)

I feel like most people know this but IF YOU DON'T, Paris in 1793 is right in the middle of something called La Terreur.

HISTORY LESSON If you didn't learn this in school the French Revolution was when, after years of escalating social tension, a coalition representing the working classes of France revolted against the monarchy, violently overthrew King Louis XVI, and declared France to be a republic.

The new National Convention governing France ruled that King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette were traitors to the people of France because of how they had spent ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries for themselves while vast numbers of the lower classes were literally starving to death. (keep the bold in mind - wealth and class disparities were one of the key causes of the whole-ass revolution)

In 1793 (year of the flashback) both the King and Queen were executed by guillotine for their crimes.

This kicks of something called The Reign of Terror (La Terreur if you want to be French about it). A multi-year-long period in which the National Convention goes on a bloody witch hunt for any and every member of the middle or upper classes who could even possibly be considered a traitor by those same standards.

If you A) had money or privilege, and B) had ever used your money or privilege to treat yourself, you were getting executed. Over 25,000 people died during the Reign of Terror, half of them by guillotine. In fact, the iconic guillotine was used because it was physically impossible to keep up with the sheer number of people they were executing in Paris every single day.

Some things that could get you killed (actually and completely seriously) during the Reign of Terror:

Implying in any way you were sympathetic to the monarchy

Having a noble title

Having expensive things

Wearing expensive, luxurious clothes (*cough* AZIRAPHALE)

helping or sympathizing with anyone who did any of the above

a working-class person saying you were mean to them once

And then there's this bitch...

I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME So we have established that Paris in 1793 is in the middle of a frenzied, state-sanctioned bloodbath in which the working classes are massacring everyone even remotely nobility-adjacent. And in the middle of this frenzy, Aziraphale proceeds to roll up in Paris in this outfit:

How will this outfit get him killed? Let me count the ways...

First off- at this point everyone with even the tiniest shred of self- preservation is hiding the fact that they are in any way associated with the monarchy. The wealthy are straight-up abandoning mansions. The middle-class are plastering over decorations to make their house look 'poor'. The only people dressed remotely decent are the guys leading the National Convention and that's just because nobody can stop them. Everyone else is in 24/7 peasant cosplay or else they are covering themselves in cockades and sashes on to show they're pro-Republic.

Aziraphale is basically a giant shiny white sign saying I AM NOBILITY PLEASE KILL ME.

First off the lace jabot and lace cuffs are both associated with the old-school wealthy in the 1790's.

His coat is also decorated in gold braid and silver buttons, which are both marks of wealth and luxury.

He basically looks like he works for Louis XIV - not just rich, but old school rich.

We know it's his natural hair color, but hair powdering (with clay and starch) had been a big trend with the rich all throughout the 18th century to get that clean white venerable look . To someone who doesn't know it's natural, it would very much look like he's wearing hair powder.

He's wearing shades of cream and white, which are very hard to keep clean and clearly states that the wearer is rich and can afford the upkeep necessary to keep an outfit like that stain-free.

He's wearing white knee-breeches and stockings, also called culottes. See above about laundry and how rich you had to be to wear white, but also working-class men wore long pants like this:

A large faction involved in the Revolution were the Sans-Culottes (no-culottes aka we wear long pants LIKE GOOD OLD WORKING MEN). Culottes are specifically associated with everything the revolution hated. That's right - Aziraphale is literally wearing The Fanciest of Fancy Pants in a city where a group called The Men Against Fancy Pants are running around murdering people.

And then there are his shoes.

Oh god his shoes

I could do a whole post about Aziraphale's blessed little white satin pumps and how ridiculous they are.

Actually I might just do that because this is getting so long and I still have to talk about the brioche.

So I can't remember if it's in the script book or if it's from Neil Gaiman's tumblr, but it's apparently canon (?) that Aziraphale was going around in that outfit asking people where he could get crepes and brioche when he was arrested.

The Affair of the Brioches

So... uh... we've all heard the line attributed to Marie Antoinette- how when she was told that her people were starving because there was no bread left in Paris, she famously said...

It's morphed into 'let them eat cake', but the line is first recorded as, "Then let them eat brioches."

While it's unlikely she ever actually said it, the important thing is that... people in 1793 would have thought she said it. It was used as political smear to show how arrogant and out of touch the monarchy was. Marie Antoinette in particular was reviled by the people of France, who thought she was the main cause of their economic problems. That's why she was executed too.

Bread and brioche and the lines between poverty and privilege were a big thing in Revolutionary France. There was a lot of political connotation to what you ate. The French Revolution came about because of decades of suffering among the lower classes of France. It wasn't something that some dudes just decided to do. The people of Paris have been through years of the absolute worst, most oppressive poverty and starvation you can imagine, all while watching the rich throw money around crazy.

So let us recap.

Aziraphale is dressed so ridiculously posh that he looks like a joke parody of a nobleman... and he is bumbling around Paris during the Reign of Terror. Asking people. For brioche. How I imagine everyone looked at him:

It is so astoundingly tone deaf and tactless. He is basically cosplaying as Marie Antoinette and then going around asking the poor for cake.

I just.... Aziraphale. babygirl. no. oh no. You're lucky they even bothered to take you to prison. I am amazed Crowley ever let him live that down.

I have no conclusion other than this. Aziraphale is ridiculous and I love him so much.

YES YOU REALLY SHOULD SIR.

[amateur-weatherman]

Nobody:

Absolutely No Single Person:

Aziraphale in the 1790's: ~oh no~ I'm *all locked up* and I can't do ANYTHING to save myself because I might get a (gasp) STRONGLY WORDED LETTER from ~Heaven~. If only a tall goth redhead could come and save me before I get (gasp) guillotined!

Crowley: here you idiot, you're free. Wtf are you wearing, by the way.

Aziraphale *face lighting up like the fucking sun*: oh goody you're here, let's go on a date!