Monday 19 May 2014

Wearing History 1910s sew-a-long

Good Morning All

I hope you have all had a marvelous weekend, myself and the wonderful Dr J. joined the Moselele lot on Saturday for a charity busk and raised lots of money for a really good cause.  It was outside, the sun shone and we had a great time and then in the evening, we happened to be close to the hotel we are having our wedding reception at so we popped in with the signed contract and had a look at the room with the evening lights and it so pretty and not at all modern, so that was lovely and we are feel very excited about the whole affair.

But on with today and I am mainly thinking about a sew-a-long I have joined to sew a 1910s suit

suitalong250px

I bought the e-pattern to download and print out at home, just a little bit more convenient for me and if I make a mess of any alterations I can always print it out and start again. Lauren the lovely lady running the sew-a-long has done a post on printing the patterns out, so if you wanted to join in and felt a little nervous about that part it will all be covered in her blog posts, as will all the aspects of sewing this lovely suit.

She also asked for help in the blogging and I thought that sounded quite like fun and would give me a chance to practice giving a little more detail, something I don't tend to do on here, as I know I have a lot of readers who aren't really into sewing or crafts and just like a little 'chat'. So over the next few weeks you will be hearing quite a lot about the 1910s and this suit.  I have a stall at a fair over the summer that is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, so I also have a goal for wearing the suit which will spur me on.

The suit is from 1916 so it will be 2 years early, but I'm sure I'm not that fussy.

So for today here's some pictures to get you in the mood..

Catalogue for W. & H. Walker Co. (Pittsburgh, Pa.) ca.1915 (152 pages, fashion, haberdashery, dry goods etc)    Read the whole book online at www.archive.org/stream/catalog00walk#page/n0/mode/2up

this one is 1914s and the skirts do tend to be longer and tighter 

Evening dresses or ballgowns, 1916 US, the Delineator

and I just love these evening dresses. The fashions all look quite relaxed and easy to wear, but believe me underneath all those gowns there lurks a corset, just a different style one to the tiny waist, push up boobs job you may have come to associate with historical corsets. No the corsets these ladies are wearing look a little more like these.

1912 corsets. | via Demode Couture.
and as they start lower they left some ladies looking for a little more support for their upper half shall we say.  I say support, the look was really to flatten them down as much as possible really and this continued into the flapper look of the 1920s. 

The whole effect of the undergarments was to give clean smooth curves with no bumpy bits.



The logo for bridges-on-the-body really shows the change in outline well.


But what does all this mean, well I haven't looked at this era before so guess what? I haven't got a suitable corset yet, and now I need to decide whether to attempt the look with modern undies or just go all out and make some of the correct type and knowing me I will end up with a 1910s corset by the end of this, (infact there is a HSF challenge coming up that would fit this perfectly so there you go).

I have to say I'm excited about the whole affair and eager to get cracking, so I'll be off and do just that.

Hugs and Kisses

Ally

1910ssuitfashionillustration


1 comment:

  1. That sounds like a neat sew-along! I don't have a single pattern that pre-dates the 40's but now I wish I did. I love the evening dresses, they make me think of butterflies.
    I look forward to your finished suit. :)

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