Looking at originals items (whether clothing, housewares, or what have you) is really useful for developing a period 'eye'. Here are a few sites that I find useful to look through when researching the 'look' of a particular item, or deciding if a reproduction is accurate enough for me to feel comfortable using it. I originally found many of these sites through The Sewing Academy.*
Original Clothing:
Museum of Fine Arts Boston- Searching the museum collections can be...interesting. There's a lot of material, so tweaking searches to produce the desired results can some practice.
Met Online Collections- Both the Met and MFA have gorgeous bonnets and dresses.
The John Bright Collection
Los Angeles County Museum
Victoria Albert Museum
UK National Trust
Wisconsin Historical Museum Online Collections
The Henry Ford Museum: Collections Access
Budapest Museum of Applied Art
The Graceful Lady- Pictures of original garments, fashion plates and CDVs.
Barrington House- CDVs
Originals by Kay (Research Corner)- Short articles illustrated with original fashion plates and pictures; also, the research behind Simplicity #2881 and #2887.
La Couturiere Parisienne- Fashion Plates & CDVs, original patterns from the 1850s.
Demode Couture- Extensive list of pictures of original garments, from the 17th-20th centuries
The Fashionable Past- A few original items c. 1820-1910, but with lots of good close-ups showing the construction details.
Original Material Culture:
Steamboat Arabia Pictures, More Pictures, Even More Pictures and the Virtual Tour- A favorite resource for period housewares.
Steamboat Bertrand (official site)- Fewer pictures, but some good close-ups.
Historic New England- Has wide variety of housewares, clothing, and furnishings (like bandboxes).
Pinterest Boards:
Anna Bauersmith- She literally wrote the book on sewing cases and straw bonnets.
Betsy Conolly- Repinned by the Empress herself
Duchess Martin- Note the fabric swatch books and buttons
Jenny Jones- Original garments; examples of good reproductions for new reenactors
*I end up linking to the SA in every post. This isn't coincidental, it's just that awesome of a place.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting!