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Monthly Archives: July 2018

Let’s face it, ladies, even if your new dress is up to the very latest fashion standard in style, color, and fabric, if your accessories are not equally splendid, someone’s bound to notice. And you know what that means. If they notice, they’re going to gossip. We mustn’t have that!

Here then, are a few ideas about accessories to help you (or your female characters) stave off that terrible fate. Instead of the travel piece I had planned for this month, I am going to share some of the lovely items I was fortunate to see last week in an exhibit at the Concord Museum (Concord, MA) running through August. It was entitled “Fresh Goods: Shopping for Clothing in a New England Town, 1750-1900.” The first words were taken from a November 1816 Concord newspaper ad offering fabrics such as “figured flannels, crimson bombazettes, and white and black cambricks”.

While not a huge exhibit (small museum) and rather broad-ranging in time, the displays included some positively lovely pieces, and we were allowed to take pictures. Some items are American-made (although in the early 1800’s many goods were still imported), but at the equivalent time they still followed the fashions we are used to seeing in Regency England.

Let’s begin with hair combs. Not the kind for combing out your hair after you’ve washed it, the kind made of tortoiseshell and carved in intricate designs, to ornament your hair on a special evening or to impress a certain special someone. They had several beautiful examples in the exhibit, and I was reminded that such hair combs could be a lovely gift if your characters need one.The stylishness of wearing them is well-documented in portraits and silhouettes of the period –you wouldn’t want to perpetuate your image wearing anything unfashionable! (The comb and box in the center belonged to Henry David Thoreau’s aunt, Maria, and is dated 1813. The small portrait at right, of Mercy Davis, is dated 1818.)

Then we have ribbons. Ribbons for hair, of course, (see portrait at top, not from the exhibit) and especially ribbons for bonnets. Another possibility for gift-giving, and less costly than a comb. Distinctive and handsome ribbon was one way to make sure your new bonnet wouldn’t look too much like someone else’s, heaven forbid! 

 

I think you can see that the bonnets pictured would be fairly generic without the lovely wide ribbons that make such a fashion statement.

The exhibit included some samples of ribbons –moiré taffeta, grosgrain, of course, and the one on the left which looked suspiciously like a modern machine-woven trim I might buy for decorating a costume! But it represents yet another type to consider.

Even if your hair is dressed perfectly and ornamented with a beautiful comb, and your ribbons are gorgeous and unlike anyone else’s, there’s still the matter of your gloves, your fan, your reticule. Are they color-coordinated to go with your dress or your pelisse? Is your fan the latest style –with feathers, or without? This beautiful beaded reticule  in the exhibit was paired with a pair of blue kid gloves dyed to match the shade of this fan –ivory sticks, blue silk leaves, and originally with blue feather tufts at the top ends! 

As writers (and readers), we know all of these delicious bits are fodder for story-telling. So here’s a question just for fun: for writers, how have you made use of fashion accessories, or an accessory, in a scene you’ve written? For readers, can you remember a scene you’ve read where a fashion accessory played a part in what happened? (Let’s say other than fans, for we all know how easily those can play a role!) Please share with us in the comments section below! Thanks for visiting. 🙂

My writing room hasn’t changed too much from the last picture I posted–boxes and boxes of books, still unpacked, alas.

However, I have been making progress on replacing the home office furniture that didn’t make it around the bend in the staircase of my new house: my big desk and a tall bookcase. I have ordered a bunch of stacking, folding bookcases from the Container Store. I had originally thought about ordering bookcases that could be assembled in the room, but then how do I get them out again? These should make it in and out (even though I AM NEVER MOVING AGAIN) and have a lot of good reviews, so I am hoping they will be sturdy enough to hold my writing library and some of my other books as well.

As for the desk, I decided to go back to a local antique store where I’d seen a lovely small desk last winter. My daughter had tried to talk me into buying it then, but it didn’t feel right to buy more furniture while trying to downsize. Luckily for me, the desk was still there, and the already reasonable price had been reduced by about 30%. Maybe it was meant to be.

Although the nice lady at the store called it “Regency”, I believe, based on the price and its similarity to some of the other vintage/antique furniture I own, that it is no earlier than Edwardian and more likely to be around 1930. Which doesn’t matter to me at all, because 1) I could afford it, 2) it will make it up the stairs, and 3) it’s really pretty! I think it would not have looked out of place in a Regency lady’s drawing room.

 

Early “desks” were often just portable writing boxes with a slanted top and a little storage inside, and then could be placed on top of other tables. Here’s an illustration.

Jane Austen used a portable desk like the one picture. Here’s a JASNA article about it.

Small desks like mine could be seen as an evolution: adding legs to the portable desk. Here’s an image of a lady from Costume Parisien with a similar small desk, or escritoire. This one is of a type called a “cylinder desk”, a precursor of what we call “roll top” desks.

Mine can be called a “drop front” or “slant front” desk. Here’s an example of one that is c. 1810, so they were definitely around.

Further evolutions of this sort of desk  added bookcases above and/or drawers or cabinets below.  I have seen all variations sometimes called “escritoires” and sometimes “secretary desks”. The term “secretary” does not refer so much to the occupation as the fact that there were places in the desk to “secret” things away.

Anyway, I am really happy with mine, and looking forward to bringing it upstairs once the bookshelves arrive and I can unpack all the books. In the meantime, I have been going out to local coffee shops to write. I have friends who say they work best in clutter, but I find it distracting and a bit guilt-producing, because I feel I should be cleaning and not writing.

How about you? Can you work in chaos or do you prefer a tidy workspace? Do you have any favorite items in your writing or office space?

Elena

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