My main focus is still 3rd quarter 18th century, but during my research I found a textile design book ca. 1812-13, and some of the swatches were too interesting to resist
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"If you have an interest in Regency fashion, please tell me which three colorways you like the best."
Interest without much in the way of study, and nothing in the way of credentials either formal or informal or unofficial, I like numbers 1, 3, and 4.
And that's "I like," not "have any notion that these were done or can be documented," so my opinion should be taken as such (merely opinion) and entirely discounted if it has no worth. For the marketing record, though, I'd buy fabric of this design in those colorways, budget permitting.
After realizing how many more options there were for buying accurate Regency fabrics, I realized that I'd better think more about sale-ability than accuracy! So, even an uninformed opinion helps. I think I might proof 1-5, and maybe a couple new 18th c. designs if I can crank some out quick enough.
Somewhere in Arnold's "Pattern of Fashion" series is a drawing of a print which is purple on white and I seem to recall it's from the early 1800s and/or the Regency period, but don't quote me on that. I'd tell you which volume, but those seem to change according to edition and printing---and binding.
Anyway, I thought the frock and the print quite handsome. And if I could get my hands on that print, I'd skip meals and skimp on meals until I could afford the yardage to make up a version of that dress, or some other I have in my mental wardrobe.
I think I found the one you're talking about: c. 1798-1805, Salisbury Museum. "A morning dress in white cotton with a small, regular, geometric pattern printed in dark purple."
Unfortunately, there's no image of the pattern, unless I'm overlooking it.
That is the dress, but the diagram or illustration of the print isn't on that page. Turn a few more pages (toward higher page numbers.) You'll see, if you turn pages one at a time, a page of chemisettes or "habit shirts" (in some places and at some times) with different neckline treatments. On the back of that page is another illustration for the c. 1795-1805 Salisbury Museum morning dress in white cotton" 's small, regular geometric pattern in dark purple. The pattern looks like two upside down L's back to back (mirroring each other) with a dot over the "arms."
Ah! I turned to the next page and even checked the front and back of the book for possible photos, but didn't turn the one more page!
That's an easy print to re-create. I wonder if it's meant to be an outline, as drawn, or filled in and what the scale would be. I couldn't find an image of the gown online and the Salisbury Museum website leaves a lot to be desired because they have almost nothing from the "Costumes" collection online.
Since it doesn't show up in the illustration proper of the dress, I'd guess it's quite small and dainty, and since other illustrations (many from later decades or even around the turn into the Twentieth Century) do show as "darker" frocks because of the detailedness of the drawings, I'm going to make another guess and say it's an outline printed in dark purple.
If you were to write to the museum...? (A local lady once wrote to some museum of the Confederacy [ACW] to obtain photos from as many possible angles as the museum would provide of a dress owned and worn by Mrs. Jefferson Davis, explaining to them that she was going to be attending a ball requiring ball gowns or evening dresses from the period 1860-1890, inclusive and that she'd seen a picture of the front of the dress but wanted to recreate it and had no idea what it looked like in profile, from the back, and in right and left front and back three-quarter views. The museum was, she said, very helpful.)
If it was for a personal project, I would probably try to write to them, but since it's more for "commercial" purposes, I won't bug them.
It could be that it's so tiny, it just couldn't be drawn without distracting from the lines of the garment. There's a dotted fabric from Barbara Johnson's album ca. 1776 that has motifs of a bar with a dot over them that have to be less than 1/4".
Interest without much in the way of study, and nothing in the way of credentials either formal or informal or unofficial, I like numbers 1, 3, and 4.
And that's "I like," not "have any notion that these were done or can be documented," so my opinion should be taken as such (merely opinion) and entirely discounted if it has no worth.
For the marketing record, though, I'd buy fabric of this design in those colorways, budget permitting.
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Happy to have been of service, ma'am!
Somewhere in Arnold's "Pattern of Fashion" series is a drawing of a print which is purple on white and I seem to recall it's from the early 1800s and/or the Regency period, but don't quote me on that.
I'd tell you which volume, but those seem to change according to edition and printing---and binding.
Anyway, I thought the frock and the print quite handsome.
And if I could get my hands on that print, I'd skip meals and skimp on meals until I could afford the yardage to make up a version of that dress, or some other I have in my mental wardrobe.
Reply
Unfortunately, there's no image of the pattern, unless I'm overlooking it.
Reply
Turn a few more pages (toward higher page numbers.) You'll see, if you turn pages one at a time, a page of chemisettes or "habit shirts" (in some places and at some times) with different neckline treatments.
On the back of that page is another illustration for the c. 1795-1805 Salisbury Museum morning dress in white cotton" 's small, regular geometric pattern in dark purple.
The pattern looks like two upside down L's back to back (mirroring each other) with a dot over the "arms."
Reply
That's an easy print to re-create. I wonder if it's meant to be an outline, as drawn, or filled in and what the scale would be. I couldn't find an image of the gown online and the Salisbury Museum website leaves a lot to be desired because they have almost nothing from the "Costumes" collection online.
Reply
If you were to write to the museum...? (A local lady once wrote to some museum of the Confederacy [ACW] to obtain photos from as many possible angles as the museum would provide of a dress owned and worn by Mrs. Jefferson Davis, explaining to them that she was going to be attending a ball requiring ball gowns or evening dresses from the period 1860-1890, inclusive and that she'd seen a picture of the front of the dress but wanted to recreate it and had no idea what it looked like in profile, from the back, and in right and left front and back three-quarter views. The museum was, she said, very helpful.)
Reply
It could be that it's so tiny, it just couldn't be drawn without distracting from the lines of the garment. There's a dotted fabric from Barbara Johnson's album ca. 1776 that has motifs of a bar with a dot over them that have to be less than 1/4".
Reply
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