#1870s evening

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Pink Taffeta Ballgown, ca. 1872.

Augusta Auctions.

[ghouljams]

no thoughts just simon roughly undoing your corset at the end of the night. idk how he'd be there without it being seen as improper or whatever or maybe hes your husband but i feel like it'd send me into subspace so quick.. kinda similar to shibari? idk.

The times when he's rough with your stays are few and far between, mostly he unlaces the (newly) double stranded thing with blunt nails that slip against the laces. His own knots so carefully tied keeping you held tight in what may as well be his embrace. His signature is already neatly embroidered on your modesty panel, his words neatly penned in bleeding ink professing all the places his lips would touch. Scandalous delivered before he ever made it to your marriage bed, you might add.

Oh no, Simon is very... deliberate with your stays. Possessive, even. His knot is one you can't undo, one that even he sometimes resorts to pulling between his teeth. It's a security you can't go against, a lock whose only key is held by Simon. He won't even let your maid touch your laces. You sit for him and arch into his touch as he threads one line, then another, and another. His fingers skim your chemise, his breath just barely even. You hang your head to feel his teeth graze the top knob of your spine as he pulls you tight, and takes the first swell of your breath between his fingers.

It's a beautiful thing. A second spine borrowed from your husband's hand. How each crossed thread holds its own knot at the center, how each lace ladders itself to climb up the looping of Simon's signature, his name just barely visible under the knots and laces. No, he doesn't tear at your stays. Swear at them maybe. Tell you he won't tie them so tight next time, a lie. But never tear.

Cut? Well, now that's another thing entirely. And you'd be lying if you said the press of his blade along your spine, slowly carving out your trapped breath, didn't make you squeeze your legs around the hand he'd already buried between them.

[daguerreotyping]

Tintype of a group of barefoot sailors at ease, c. 1870s

[fashionsfromhistory]

Day Dress

Charles Frederick Worth

c.1870

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Accession Number: 2002.696.1-5)

[chic-a-gigot]

La Mode illustrée, no. 40, 1 octobre 1871, Paris. Toilettes de Mme Fladry, 43, rue Richer. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney

Robe de dessous en foulard blanc. Robe de dessus en mousseline blanche, garnie d'un volant de dentelle blanche, posé à plat. Au-dessus de ce volant, une ruche de mousseline blanche, ourlée de chaque côté, plissée au milieu. Seconde jupe en même mousseline, avec même garniture, relevée de chaque côté sous un cordon de grenades. Corsage décolleté, avec berthe formant basques, composée de bouillonnés de mousseline et de dentelle blanche. Sur le devant du corsage un bouquet de grenades.

Underdress in white foulard. Overdress in white muslin, trimmed with a white lace flounce, laid flat. Above this flounce, a ruffle of white muslin, hemmed on each side, pleated in the middle. Second skirt in the same muslin, with the same trim, raised on each side under a cord of pomegranates. Low-cut bodice, with a berthe forming basques, composed of muslin and white lace shirring. On the front of the bodice a bouquet of pomegranates.

—

Robe de gaze de soie lilas très-clair, garnie d'un volant plissé, surmonté de deux biais. Tunique ouverte, garnie de trois biais et d'une dentelle noire. Grandes basques garnies comme la tunique. Corsage décolleté, à basques par devant. Les biais de la tunique remontent de façon à garnir l'épaule. Ceinture avec deux choux posés sur chaque côté.

Dress in very light lilac silk gauze, trimmed with a pleated flounce, topped with two biases. Open tunic, trimmed with three biases and black lace. Large basques trimmed like the tunic. Low-cut bodice, with basques in front. The biases of the tunic rise so as to garnish the shoulder. Belt with two choux placed on each side.

[vintage-russia]

"Evening" (1860s/1870s)

Aleksey Savrasov (1830-1897)

[mote-historie]

Alfred Stevens, After the Ball. 1874

This painting, also known as Confidence, is one of several by Stevens to treat the theme of consolation. As in his other works from the 1870s, here the anecdotal content of a letter containing distressing news asserts itself in a glimpse of the life of fashionable Parisian women in their elegant interiors. Stevens's subject matter and his meticulous attention to contemporary dress and decor elicited analogies to seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art; in fact, one critic called him the Gerard ter Borch of France.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[threadtalk]

How about a wrapped gown? I mean, truly, this looks like a Christmas present.

This gown was made by fashion house and official royal dressmaker, Madame Elise and is likely one of Princess Alexandra's. It dates from around 1870, and you can see that it still has the hallmarks of the 1860s--especially that bodice--but is a bit less full. The bell-shape, tiered look has a lot going on! The dress was lost, but rediscovered in the 20th century in a shop in London.

Madame Elise was a powerhouse in London during this 1860s-1880s, but her warehouse compound was certainly not the best place to live and work. Dressmakers were expected to work long hours (6am-11pm) and were put in cramped quarters with very little ventilation.

One of the workers wrote: “At night we retire to rest in a room divided into little cells, each just large enough to contain two beds. There are two of us in each bed. There is no ventilation; I could scarcely breathe in them when I first came from the country. The doctor who came this morning said they were not fit for dogs to sleep in.”

From Fashion Museum Bath.

[getvalentined]

Seem's best friend is a brass crab with no pincers that I got from a consignment shop for $8

[sushisocks]

what do u think seans experience in reform school was like?? apparently the punishments were….well.

OH ANON!!!!! YES let's talk about this!!!!

So, a majority of the reform school horror stories that at least I've been hearing over the past few years have been largely been about schools that operated in the 20th century and into the 2010s at the latest, like the Dozier school or Elan. Then obviously there's the rest of the troubled teen industry but that's a more modern thing. Anyway, there's not a whole lot to go on for the late 1800's BUT I did manage to find a website which has a model for reformatory rules and regulations in 1890's Britain, which if nothing else, gives us something to go off in terms of what conditions could be like.

To start with, I think the fact that Sean was sent to reform school instead of other options interesting. Reform school was for delinquents; criminal children. Most likely, this means Sean was involved in criminal activity alongside his father - though, alternatively, it could mean whoever had to deal with Sean in the aftermath of Darragh's death, took one look at him and decided reform school was where he had to go.

Of course, Sean would never make life EASY for the officers and teachers of the school he was sent to. Not only is he there against his will, but those people and that place would, in his mind, all belong to the same entity which orchestrated his father's murder. That boy CAME to school with the intent to escape.

I think, with my HC of him having ADHD and dyslexia in mind, paired with his undoubted lack of respect for whatever authority figures that'd be at the reformatory, Sean would be singled out as a troublemaker from the get. It'd be one of those 'living up to expectations' thing from there, Sean making enemies out of the adults who were supposed to care for him and definitely coming up with ways to make their lives harder.

Sidenote; I definitely believe the little laugh Sean has after remembering his time in reform school was him reminiscing about all the pranks and shit he pulled to harass the workers there lmfao.

Of course, that also means he saw a LOT of the punishments they doled out. On the website they linked above, corporal punishment was VERY much on the agenda and I think Sean def saw the worst of it. I think an important aspect here is the understanding that once these things are seen as acceptable punishments, there's nothing stopping the person doling them out to up the severity of them despite regulations. A flogging shouldn't exceed 18 strokes nor a caning 8; but this offender has had several in the past few weeks and still keeps making trouble, lets add a couple extra just to get the message across.

I think the same goes for the punishments regarding isolation and meal deprivation; you can't tell me a young Sean already doesn't know the feeling of skipping meals out of necessity by the time he arrives at reform school - losing ONE meal as the regulations say with the assuredness of the next would do nothing to dampen Sean's spirits, nor a day in isolation.

Idk, Sean was truly desperate for money/food after 3 days, like that was when he tried to kill someone for it. Personally speaking, I go more than 12 hours without eating and I'd probably try to kill someone too. The 3 days speaks to a familiarity with hunger.

And idk, I definitely think Sean is used to being alone!!! It's why he likes being around people so much!! He grew up with only his father to rely on in the whole wide world, who probably HAD to leave Sean alone for prolonged amounts of time to do what he did as a Fenian & criminal. His scene in RDO also speaks to this; he gets lost and is on his own often!! It's not that he prefers it, but he is definitely used to it, and a day in isolation would probably make 0 difference to him fr!!

So, better up the ante to truly get those punishment across.

These are based on the British regulations for the time, mind! I couldn't find anything similar for the US, and I doubt there'd been a federal standard at the time, so I honestly imagine the punishments were more severe from the get, for Sean. Of course reform schools were supposed to be focused on reform over punishment, but when you're dealing with someone as possibly incessant and unyielding in their misbehavior as I imagine Sean was, punishment WOULD seem like the only option, with the knowledge they had at the time. I think he probably got the worse end of a LOT of it, because he wouldn't capitulate to the will of the reformatory very easily.

I don't think Sean stuck around for very long; around a year at most, I'd think. I also don't think he aged out of it, as the age of majority was 21 and it was more common for reform schools to set them up for some sort of legal work after 'graduating'. So yeah, he ran away, and promptly buried a lot of the bad shit he went through, as he is prone to do.

Thank you for this ask, anon!! I had a lot of fun thinking and reading about this, yall are REALLY indulging me here lolol

[designedandplated]

Womens' Evening Dresses, January 1878.

[digitalfashionmuseum]

Peach silk evening dress, 1876-1878, British.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Head in my hands wondering if I'll have to cut the entire Chume Labs section out because it's more suited to being a different chapter, but also knowing the next chapter can't have it either so I might have to cut it from this fic entirely aaaAAAAAAAAAA

[daguerreotyping]

Tintype of a handsome pair, the man in front leaning cozily back into his companion's embrace, c. 1875-1880

[fashionsfromhistory]

Day & Evening Bodices owned by Empress Eugenie of France

1850s-1870s

The Bowes Museum via Facebook

[chic-a-gigot]

La Mode illustrée, no. 4, 28 janvier 1872, Paris. Toilettes de Mme Bréant-Castel, 28 rue Neuve des Petits Champs. Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Netherlands

Robe de dessous en satin blanc. Première jupe en tarlatane blanche, avec volant plissé ayant 25 centimètres de hauteur. Au-dessus de ce volant une bordure grecque en velours rouge, se terminant par des bouclettes de même velours. Seconde jupe pareille garnie de même (volant de moitié moins haut que le précédent), relevée de chaque côté. Corsage décolleté en velours rouge à petites basques et manches courtes. Collier en corail rouge. Dans les cheveux diadème en grenades.

Jupon de faye fris bleu, garni d'un volant froncé ayant 35 centimètres de hauteur. Au-dessus de ce volant, des pattes en velours de même couleur, fixées par un grand bouton d'argent. Au-dessus des pattes, une ruche en faye. Tunique garnie de même. Corsage montant à basques, et manches à volant avec même garniture. Sous-manches larges en dentelle.

—

White satin underdress. First skirt in white tarlatan, with pleated flounce 25 centimeters high. Above this flounce a Greek border in red velvet, ending in loops of the same velvet. Second similar skirt trimmed in the same way (ruffle half as high as the previous one), raised on each side. Low-cut red velvet bodice with small peplums and short sleeves. Red coral necklace. Pomegranate tiara in her hair.

Blue Faye Fris petticoat, trimmed with a gathered flounce 35 centimeters high. Above this ruffle, velvet tabs of the same color, attached by a large silver button. Above the legs, a faye ruffle. Tunic trimmed in the same way. High peplum bodice and ruffled sleeves with the same trim. Wide lace undersleeves.