Real Women’s Clothing Directory – now 1600-1919!

I’ve actually had enough time to do the major housekeeping required on the Real Women’s Clothing directory. All broken links have been fixed or removed – thanks to those who emailed to point things out! Unfortunately it’s a huge task to go through and correct links — I have to systematically go through the whole thing, or I forget which parts have been checked and which haven’t and have to start all over again. Also, I was asked by the Museo del Traje to list their name next to all of their listings; this is something I’ve thought about doing for a while, but their request made me get off my butt and do it. So now each listing has the museum indicated, which took a few weeks to complete.

In far more exciting news… the directory has always reflected my research interests. It started as just Victorian, then grew to include the second half of the 18th century. Now that I’ve been seriously studying the 17th and first half of the 18th century, I’ve included listings for 1600-1699 and 1700-1749! There aren’t a ton of listings, as the earlier you go, the less has been preserved, but there’s enough interesting stuff in there to warrant doing it. I’ve thought about including the 1500s too, but there are enough sites out there (the Elizabethan Costuming Page, the Realm of Venus) who are doing these harder-to-find eras, and I think doing it better than I could.

There are a VERY few new listings in the other eras (1750-1919), but soon (give me a month or so) I’ll have a ha-uge whopper of an update to those eras. I’ve found some really great resources lately!

Happy browsing!