One More Yellow Regency Dress

You know, for good measure. This one is in the McCord Museum.

A Further Study In Bustles - The 1880s

These are 1880s bustles. As you can see, they have a similar pattern. There are the dull hoop-type bustles, the mummy-bustles, and the narrow bustles just in the back in casings. The interesting part is that there are also some stranger and more fascinating short bustles. I know it is a lot of pictures to scroll through, but make sure you get that far because they are cool.

Plain hoops.Mummy-style bustle


Casings, all the bustle in the back.
Short bustles! I adore them.

A Study of 1870s Bustles

Wow. This is a lot of pictures. Brace yourself.

I was thinking about steampunk, and I thought I would like to make a bustle. So I started researching. These are the 1870s bustles I found (tomorrow you can see the 1880s!). I have lumped them into three categories. First, the boring, like hoops but a little funny shaped, bustles. Second, there are the mummy hoops (I have included pictures from both side and front for these, so you can see what I am talking about), where there are wire supports only in the back and then a grid of tapes for support. I have made up the mummy term, but that's just what it makes me think of. Then there are the more interesting bustles, which vary and are often fabric with casings for wires or even without wires altogether. Interesting. I must further consider what I want to make for myself. If nothing else, I'm enjoying seeing the variation.

First category: Boring hoop-like things.
Second category: The mummy bustle







Third category: Interesting bustles, usually with casings.

Yellow Regency Dresses

Recently I was wearing my mother's yellow silk regency dress. A gentleman started telling me about the history of dyes, and was postulating that in the regency period dresses were black, white, or grey, with the occasional red dress for someone extravagant. Now, I understand that the aniline dyes opened a whole world of exciting possibilities (I do love doing 1860s clothes!), but this struck me as excessive. I got a little paranoid. But now I've done some research and I feel much better. I present to you three original dresses in yellow silk (various dates in the 1800-1818 range), plus a portrait of Amelie Augustes von Bayerne done by Joseph Karl Stieler in 1823. Actually, I really adore all of these (check out that fringe!), so take a look.