1836-1840 ca. Floral Print Cotton Dress With Silk Satin Piping, English. Cotton printed in soft pink, red, white, and green floral motif on light brown, edged with green silk satin piping and lined with linen and cotton. Sleeves tightly gathered, loose at elbow, skirt gathered from tight fitting bodice edged with green satin piping. via Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. collections.vam.ac.uk.From the Museum: Soft colours and floral patterns are a distinctive feature of many 1830s day dresses. Here, pink, red and white flowers harmonise with the brown ground and green piping. The construction of the sleeves is also interesting as they are tightly gathered at the top and loose around the elbow. This accentuates the slope of the shoulder and the tightness of the wrist.
Chatelaines and Chains History Notes Book 9 By Suzi Love. What do you know about Chatelaines and Chains worn in Jane Austen’s and Bridgerton times? Women in charge of households carried important items with them. History Notes Book 9 Chatelaines and Chains. books2read.com/SuziLoveChatelaines
Jane Austen’s Personal Necessities, keys, or chatelaines was a set of useful items hung from waist by decorative chain. Chatelaines and Chains. History Notes Book 9 By Suzi Love. Women in charge of households dangled long chains from their waists to keep essentials within easy reach e.g. keys, notebook and pen, watch, sewing items, vinaigrette or perfume, or magnifying glass. Early chatelaine were simple essentials. Later chatelaine were decorative and expensive. http://books2read.com/SuziLoveChatelaines
Definition Chatelaine: The word Chatelaine is French and means the keeper of the keys. Chatelaine” derives from the Latin word for castle. In Medieval times, the chatelaine was in charge of the day-to-day running of the castle. Women in charge of households dangled long chains from their waists to keep essentials within easy reach e.g. keys, notebook and pen, watch, sewing items, vinaigrette or perfume, or magnifying glass. Early chatelaine were simple essentials. Later chatelaine were decorative and expensive.books2read.com/SuziLoveChatelaines
What did a chatelaine do? Most important task was keeper of the keys. Also ordered supplies, did bookkeeping, supervised servants, taught castle children, and organized guests.
What was fashionable for outer wear in past centuries? Different names in different countries: Pelisse, Redingote, Coat, Or Walking Dress. The Bridgertons and Jane Austen and her contemporaries wore long coats like these to keep warm when out and about, visiting, shopping etc. The thin muslin dresses worn in the early 1800s were little protection against European winters. http://books2read.com/suzilovePelisse
This book shows how corsets changed to both provide support and also fit well under clothing to give a fashionable silhouette. Corsets started being a fashion item, rather than simply underclothing to be hidden. Romantic Era women’s fashionable corsets. Corsets worn from 1830-1850, or the Romantic Era of fashion. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveCorsetBook18 Corsets 1830-1850 History notes Book 18
1800-1850 ca. Reticule, Or Bag. Brown bag with monogram and drawstring, British. The Bridgerton family and Jane Austen and their female contemporaries would have sewn, gifted and used a bag similar to this. via Snowshill Manor, National Trust, U.K. nationaltrustimages.org.uk
Definition Reticule: Bag or purse, often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket. So women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring.
What did the Bridgerton ladies and Jane Austen use to carry her personal items? Ridicule, Reticule, Or Handbag? Call them what you like: purses, bags, handbags, reticules, ridicules, clutches, or pocket replacements. They all did the same job and they changed greatly with the prevailing fashions of time. books2read.com/suziloveReticules
Definition Of A Reticule; Bag or purse, often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket, so women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring. These Reticules, or bags, were the forerunners of our modern day purses.
The term ‘ridicule’ derived from the Latin ‘ridiculum’ and first used in France during the 17th century and meant subjecting something or someone to mockery. As women’s tiny bags were mocked, or ridiculed, for being a useless fashion accessory carried outside when they were first used in the late 1700s, it’s likely this is how the name ‘ridicule’ started. The later term ‘reticule’ derived from the Latin reticulum, meaning ‘netted bag’ and was applied when bags became larger and often made from netting. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, they were also known as indispensables as they carried all the personal items a lady needed upon her person every day. They were easily made by ladies, easy to carry and became an indispensable fashion accessory.
In the early nineteenth century, reticules started to look like future handbags as they were often made from rigid card or molded mâché or card into a variety of shapes. Early bags were circular and with a drawstring but as women wanted their reticules to look individual they could be made with two halves and a hinged metal closure or with concertina sides. Materials varied from silk, cotton and string and shapes were round, hexagonal or lozenge shapes with shell shaped bags becoming very popular during the Regency and Romantic Eras.
1800s magazines were written for well bred women who could read, so they gave plenty of ideas for how ladies could make and embellish reticules for their own use and as pretty gifts. Needlework was highly encouraged as a pastime for a lady so bags were frequently embroidered or decorated with beading. By the 1820s, reticules became more like our modern handbags using soft leather gathered at the top or hard leather with a rigid fastener and metal chain for carrying.
During the Victorian Era, the tight lacing of corsets became known for damaging women’s bodies. However, the whalebone used to stiffen corsets was also a protector of the chest and rib area.
1833 Morning Post: HATTON-GARDEN. ATTEMPTED MURDER. George Bailey, a youth about seventeen, was charged with having attempted to murder Mary Prendergast, a young woman, by stabbing her with a large knife. It appeared in evidence that on Thursday morning, last, about five o’clock, the Prisoner, who sells fish in a basket near Portpool-lane, Leather-lane, Holborn, was standing before his basket when the Prosecutrix asked him the price of his fish. He told her, and she refused to purchase, but laughed at him and jeered him.. . . . In the course of the evening the Prosecutrix was passing by, when the Prisoner rushed upon her with a knife which he uses to cut up the fish and, while in a great passion, he pluinged the knife several times at her heart, and the last thrust the point of the knife dug into her clothes, and would have entered her body had it not been that the bone of her stays prevented it …
1837 The Standard: MARLBOROUGH-STREET. – AN UNNATURAL SON – Alfred Grant, a lad about nineteen years of age, of sullen aspect, was brought before Mr. Dyer, charged with having attempted to stab his own mother . . . James Grant, the brother of the prisoner, about sixteen years of age, said the prisoner came home to Grafton-street, Soho, on Monday afternoon, and some words having ensued between him and his mother, he seized a knife and made a stab at her. Fortunately the bone of his mother’s stays turned the point of the knife …
1841 The Morning Post: Catherine Connor, the person alluded to by the last witness, and who is in a state of pregnancy, deposed that she kept a fruit stall opposite to the Phoenix public-house and that on seeing the young man so savagely treated, she made use of the expersions just named, when Hill called her a ——–, and kicked at her violently. Fortunately for her, she received two of the worse kicks aimed at her on the bone of her stays, otherwise they would, she had no doubt, have proved most serious to her from the situation she was then in.
1845-1865 ca. Cream Silk Evening Slippers, British. Cream evening shoes with ankle ties and lace trim. Trim is unusual because mid 19th Century ladies’ shoes were often plain as only toes showed beneath fashionable long skirts. Designed By Hobbs, famous London shoemaker, and with a label attached to lining with a regal crest to show maker’s royal patronage. via Metropolitan Museum, NYC, U.S.A. metmuseum.org
