The Way We Dress: Clothes and Meaning, Ayer Mansion Lecture Series

Fridge List for Fall 2019

Kimberly Alexander 

Upcoming Talks for Fall 2019:

Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era 

and

Fashioning the New England Family

September 9, 7:00pm

Wiggin Memorial Library and Stratham Historical Society, Stratham, NH

Fashioning the 18th Century New England Family

https://www.library.strathamnh.gov/library-info/pages/calendar

September 28, 2:00pm

Massachusetts Historical Society 

Workshop/Free but registration required

Primary Sources for Fashion & Costume History Research

With Kimberly Alexander, University of New Hampshire and Sara Georgini, MHS

Antique textiles, images of historical figures, and material culture hold a wealth of information that can enrich personal stories, explain relationships, and contextualize the world that people occupied. However, these sources can seem daunting to explore. Two experts on fashion and material culture will guide you through unraveling the stories woven into history’s fabric. This workshop is part of MHS Remember Abigail programming, and Boston Fashion Week

https://www.masshist.org/calendar/monthly,mo=2019-09,path=#juniperCal

October 1, 6:30pm

Malden Historical Society, Malden, MA

Shoes and Their Stories[part of the Elisha Converse  2020 Exploring the Industrial History of Malden series]

https://www.maldenhistoricalsociety.org/home/events-projects/

October 16, 7:00pm

Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA

“1 gowne 6 petticoats 1 pair body’s’: Dressing in Early New England


https://pilgrimhall.org/museum_events.htm#October

October 25-27

The Honourable Cordwainers' Company35th Annual General Meeting with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA

‘Shoes for the Southern Trade’: Northern Complicity & the Shoe Trade in the Early Republic

http://thehcc.org

November 3, 1:00pm

Durham Historic Association

Buying Shoes and Purchasing Patriotism: The Politicization of Footwear, 1760s-1770s

https://www.ci.durham.nh.us/community/durham-historic-association

A Child’s 18th Century Lace Stomacher

Carefully preserved in the collections of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, MA. is a diminutive stomacher (Accession #PHM111A). Made for a member of the Standish family, it is 8 inches long and 6 inches wide at the widest point. Triangular in shape, it is made of needle lace insets with a bobbin lace edge. Similar triangular shaped stomachers were an essential component of 18^th century women’s dress, serving both to cover stays, and to embellish open robes or gowns. They were easily removable via quick stitching or straight pins.

This charming piece may have been owned by Hannah Standish between 1703-1774, although the maker and wearer are not known.

Many thanks to PHM Director, Donna Curtin, for her assistance.

For additional information, contact https://pilgrimhall.org/ce_library_archives.htm

Leverett Family Petticoat Returns to Colonial Williamsburg

The Leverett family quilted petticoat, reproduced from a pattern created by pricking the design onto muslin, has been returned to the makers at the Margaret Hunter Shop, Milliners and Mantuamakers at Colonial Williamsburg. 

The pricking was in the collection of Massachusetts Historical Society, along with a written description (left by a family member) which noted it was a pale blue silk with silk thread used for the quilting, which gave it the impression of light ‘tissue.’ The recreation of the petticoat was a collaborative project between the Massachusetts Historical Society and Colonial Williamsburg, and was created for display in the exhibit entitled Fashioning the New England Family, on view from October 2018-April 2019. 

Fashioning the New England Family, www.masshist.org
Mannequins by Astrida Schaeffer

It is now safely in the hands of Mistress Whitacre, where it will be used for educational and interpretive purposes. It was entirely hand sewn by the milliners and mantua-makers.

For information on the project, see: 

http://www.silkdamask.org/2018/10/a-quilted-silk-petticoat-bridges-past.html

For information on the exhibition, see:

https://www.masshist.org/fashion

For an interview with Jared Bowen of Open Studio on WGBH:

https://www.wgbh.org/program/open-studio-with-jared-bowen/fashioning-new-england-small-mouth-sounds-and-more

Luster. Shine. Sheen: The Visual Lexicon of the 18th Century Elite

Mid 18th century paste stone and silver shoe buckles, French or English. Private Collection.

Behind me in the pit sat a young fop who continually put his foot on my bench in order to show off the flashy stone buckles on his shoes; if I didn’t make way for his precious buckles he put his foot on my coat-tails.

       Carl Moritz, at a London theater, from Journeys of a German in London in 1782 [i]

Silver thread embroidery with spangles. Private Collection

Mid-18th century gold lace. Upham Family Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society 

Luster, shine, sheen. Creating highly polished surfaces, adorning oneself with glittering metallic lace, silver or gold threads, or sparkling jewels were part of the visual lexicon of the eighteenth-century. Baroque then Rococo styles dominated European art, architecture, and fashion, introducing a taste for dramatic, theatrical movement and the interplay of light and shadow. As global trade expanded, new materials and ideas from foreign ports became more accessible. Designers and artisans experimented with bold palettes, active patterns, undulating lines, and S-curves. The naturalistic motifs found in rich brocades and silks were not limited to interior furnishings and textiles, but permeated all aspects of elite dress. Elite consumers could draw upon Chinese, English, and French silks, metallic threads, and trim (then known as lace), elaborate passementerie (decorative trims including tassels, floss fringe, and so on) and the softest of Spanish and Moroccan leathers.

In keeping with the aesthetics of the era, Americans, too, sought to create dramatic effect through a lady or gentleman’s hair, dress, and accessories, particularly for special occasions. The goal was to create a sense of movement and a play of light by employing shimmering silk damask and brocade for ladies dresses, petticoats, and bodices; and gentlemen’s coats, waistcoats. And the accessories were no exception – shoes embroidered with metallic lace and embellished with spangles, clocked stockings worked with metallic threads, and glittering silver and paste stone buckles--some even featuring real gems, such as diamonds and sapphires.[ii] Shoes and stockings were transformed from the everyday by metallic lace, and spangles, which, in combination with glittering buckles, epitomized popular Georgian style aesthetics.[iii]

---

[i]Carl Moritz, at a London theater, from Journeys of a German in London in 1782, in Richard B. Schwartz, Daily Life in Johnson’s London(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 171.

[ii]Extravagant examples, such as sapphire- and diamond-laden shoe buckles dating from the mid-eighteenth century, were recently exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in the exhibition “Pleasure and Pain” (2015). 

For additional information on buckles as a fashion and economic statement, see Riello, A Foot in the Past, 75-82.

[iii]For more on metallic thread, see Garside, Paul (2012). 'Gold and silver metal thread', in: Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (eds.). Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, c. 450-1450, Brill: Leiden, pp. 237-239; Marsh, Gail (2006). 18th Century Embroidery Techniques, Lewes: Guild of Master Craftsman Publications. Paperback edition 2012, pp. 38-69.

For an example of the use of gold metallic lace on a woman's dress, see a Robe à la française (or sack back) with petticoat(English or French, 1760-65)from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: https://collections.lacma.org/node/231561 - see images above.

A Striking Persimmon Sack Back, c1760s

Now closed, I was fortunate to tour the Casanova exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston this summer. It was a lavish and bold exhibition; a feast for the senses—as one might imagine for one with the appetites (many quite unsavory) of Casanova and the 18^thcentury world he traversed.

One of the entrancing tableaux was of an elite woman’s morning ritual – her toilette. Seated at her dressing table, there are shenanigans occurring behind her, presumably between her husband and ladies maid, passing a letter between them.

Each mannequin in this tripartite ensemble is of interest. For this post, I focus on the striking persimmon orange robe a la francaise (or sack back) open robe with compere (a variation of a stomacher often with buttons like a waistcoat) front, double-flounced pagoda sleeve ruffles and pocket slits at each hip.  It is two parts (robe, petticoat), c1760s

For information on the sack back, see: www.mfa.org https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/womans-dress-in-two-parts-robe-petticoat-556860

Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.
Image, Strawbery Banke; Photograph, Ellen McDermott

Shoes reveal the hopes, dreams, and disappointments of the early Americans who wore them.

In Treasures Afoot, Kimberly S. Alexander introduces readers to the history of the Georgian shoe. Presenting a series of stories that reveal how shoes were made, sold, and worn during the long eighteenth century, Alexander traces the fortunes and misfortunes of wearers as their footwear was altered to accommodate poor health, flagging finances, and changing styles. She explores the lives and letters of clever apprentices, skilled cordwainers, wealthy merchants, and elegant brides, taking readers on a journey from bustling London streets into ship cargo holds, New England shops, and, ultimately, to the homes of eager consumers.

We trek to the rugged Maine frontier in the 1740s, where an aspiring lady promenades in her London-made silk brocade pumps; sail to London in 1765 to listen in as Benjamin Franklin and John Hose caution Parliament on the catastrophic effects of British taxes on the shoe trade; move to Philadelphia in 1775 as John Hancock presides over the Second Continental Congress while still finding time to order shoes and stockings for his fiancée’s trousseau; and travel to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1789 to peer in on Sally Brewster Gerrish as she accompanies President George Washington to a dance wearing her brocaded silk shoes.

Interweaving biography and material culture with full-color photographs, Treasures Afoot raises a number of fresh questions about everyday life in early America: What did eighteenth-century British Americans value? How did they present themselves? And how did these fashionable shoes reveal their hopes and dreams? Examining shoes that have been preserved in local, regional, and national collections, this book demonstrates how footwear captures an important moment in American history while revealing a burgeoning American identity.

Historian Kimberly S. Alexander, a former curator at the MIT Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and Strawbery Banke, teaches material culture and museum studies at the University of New Hampshire.

Two Refashioned Silk Dresses

Photograph by Laura Wulf @Massachusetts Historical Society

Exhibit Teaser: Two refashioned silk dresses will be featured in the forthcoming exhibition at the Massachusetts Historical Society (https://www.masshist.org) ‘Fashioning the New England Family’ which opens October 2018. The lush, emerald green dress on the left began as Spitalfields silk damask wedding dress, worn by Rebecca Tailer [Byles] for her Boston wedding to Reverend Mather Byles, in 1747. It was altered, clumsily, c.1830s-40s, most likely for a costume or fancy dress event. Her matching shoes are extant and will also be on view.

Photograph by Laura Wulf @Massachusetts Historical Society

Unfortunately, we do not know who made or wore the well-constructed pale green silk dress on the right. It shows the hand of a skilled dressmaker and most likely has a New England connection. Examination by costume historian and mannequin maker, Astrida Schaeffer, revealed the possibility that the original c1830s dress was replete with popular pouf sleeves, which were painstakingly remade for the 1840s.

Photograph by Laura Wulf @Massachusetts Historical Society

Photograph by Laura Wulf @Massachusetts Historical Society

Guest Curator, Kimberly Alexander, Ph.D.

MHS Curator, Anne Bentley

Photographer, Laura Wulf

Both dresses are shown on custom mannequins made by Astrida Schaeffer of Schaeffer Arts. (http://www.schaefferarts.com/)

Lecture: "'For the heat is beyond your conception:' Dressing for the Heat in the Eighteenth Century"

On Thursday, July 13, join Neal Hurst, Associate Curator, Costumes and Textiles, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for an illustrated lecture, entitled  "'For the heat is beyond your conception:' Dressing for the Heat in the Eighteenth Century"

Held at Historic Deerfield Community Center. Free.

Sponsored by Bank of America

For additional information, see: http://www.historic-deerfield.org/event/lectures/2017-summer-lecture-series-summer-living-early-america/?eID=23317

Image: Natural cotton breeches, Tazewell, 1770-1810

Origin: America, Virginia

Waist: 37 3/4" to 41" OL: 29" Inseam: 17" Selvage width of textile: 13 3/4"

Cream tabby weave cotton, lined with tabby linen.

@Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Museum Purchase, Acc. No. 1991-563

More: http://emuseum.history.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:560