Category: 18th century

Posted on

Beginning the Maja!

Or, peering at high resolution scans and trying to figure out wth is going on there!

So I am nearly done binding my new stays, but while I wait for a bit more silk ribbon to show up in the mail, I decided to get started on my big project for the summer:  the c. 1775 Maja fancy dress costume.  I’m going to drape the waistcoat, then it will be on to spangle embroidery land!  I figure I may switch off between draping further sections and what should be endless spangle-ing.

Here’s mockup #1 and 2.  I obviously worked a lot from the original painting, but also used this jacket from the Museo del Traje as a reference for the back.  I found a lot of paintings (like this Goya) that show even narrower back seams… but those all appear to be from the 1790s, so I thought this seemed more reasonable.

The hitch?  WTH is going on with the front?  It looks all fine and dandy, until you realize that there appears to be a center front opening closed with buttons and loops on the bottom half, but on the top half there’s a wide overlap that’s falling back!  So, uh, how does it close?  I poked around and none of the images I can find of extant garments from Spain in this era, or maja paintings, show anything similar.  The closest thing I could find was this 1777 drawing of a maja, which has an asymmetrical front flap opening — but that’s on the jacket, not the waistcoat!

Peering and peering at the original painting, I’ve semi-decided that the waistcoat must close center front, but then have a flap that overlaps near the top.  There is a button that’s sort of shadowed that COULD be in line with the other center front buttons, or maybe is further over and so could be the bottom edge of this flap?  The only other alternative is that the center front buttons/loops are non-functional, and the bodice overlaps really far over — but that seems impractical, as it would be hard to fit that wide of an overlap.  Right now, the overlapped top that I’ve draped is in a square shape, but it just occurred to me that it COULD be angled from the CF line up to the overlap (so more of a triangle shape).

What do you think?  How would you drape this sucker?

Posted on

I Love Paris in the Late Springtime/Early Summertime…

[Side note:  you are all heathens for not being excited about that Gainsborough portrait!]

So the thing I keep meaning to post about, but then get distracted by how busy life is these days, is… I’M GOING TO PARIS IN MAY!  EEP!  SUPER exciting!  I’ll be visiting Lisa, who lives in Paris, for a week and a half.

Beyond wanting to visit Lisa, and who DOESN’T want to go to Paris?  The thing that is getting this nervous flyer on a plane by herself is…

I’m going to be going to Vaux-le-Vicomte!  Which is the French chateau that was the inspiration for Versailles.  Specifically, to the Grand Bal Costume — a 17th/18th century (required! yay!) costume ball, with dinner beforehand.  The ball will be in the Grand Salon, which sounds very promising; and will have a Baroque musical group, and period dancing. (Side note:  I am amused that the ball goes from 11pm-3am, which is so VERY European!).  There will be fireworks in the garden.  I may die of happiness!

This is the room the ball will be in:

Grand Salon du chateau de Vaux le Vicomte

And then on Sunday, I’ll be going to the Journee Grand Siecle, which is a 17th/18th century costumed afternoon at Vaux where attendees are encouraged to bring picnics, plus there are various demonstrations/activities.

Journée Grand siècle - Château de Vaux le Vicomte

I am BEYOND excited!  I hope to meet/re-meet many European costumers I’ve chatted with online.  And and…TWO COSTUME EVENTS IN NOT JUST PERIOD BUILDINGS, BUT OVER-THE-TOP FABULOUSLY PERIOD BUILDINGS!!!  Where history happened!

Of course, there will be other adventures — I plan to spend as much of a day as I can stomach at the Louvre.  And there’s other costume stuff… but I’ll save that for the next post!

Oh, input desired!  I am going to wear my 1780 polonaise for the picnic day.  Which francaise should I wear to the ball — the peach or the black?  I am purposely NOT stressing myself by trying to make something new for this!

Posted on

UK Auction/Some Fabulous Paintings

I have tons to post about, but I gotta parse it out to keep things interesting!  So here’s #1:

Christie’s has announced a sale of items from Cowdray Park in West Sussex.  Among the items will be this Gainsborough portrait that hasn’t been seen for 50 years:

Unfortunately the Christie’s site hasn’t been updated yet with details on all the individual items, but I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled!  Here’s an article about the sale from the Daily Mail, and the press release.

Posted on

I May Need to Move to Spain

Valencia, specifically.  So, I am forcing myself to Stay On Target and am starting the Maja dress!  What, you may be asking, is this?  Oh, only a costume that I’ve been saying I’m going to make for about three years.

To recap:  it’s a mid-1770s (c. 1773?  1775?  I’ve seen conflicting dates, gotta look into that more) portrait of the Marquese de Llano wearing a masquerade costume of a Maja.  Majas/Majos were working class people who lived in Madrid in the late 18th and 19th centuries.  They spoke “pure” Castilian, wore elaborate outfits, and had a general swagger and bravado that captured the imagination of Spain.  In time, their clothing became adopted as the national traditional dress of Spain.

So in doing all this research on the style, I found a ton of cool resources, and then stumbled across Las Fallas, which is a big annual festival held in Valencia.  Why is this exciting?  Because they wear E-LAB-ORATE “traditional Spanish dress”… which is based on late 18th century Maja costumes.  Of course, it’s morphed over time, but it is totally gorgeous.  To wit:

Fallas Valencia 2010 (95)

Fallas Valencia 2010 (71)

Fallas Valencia 2010 (133)

Fallas Valencia 2010 (94)

I mean seriously, where do I sign up???  The hair!  The jewelry!  The fabrics!  The 18th c. silhouette!  Aiee!!!

There is, of course, a whole industry in Valencia around these costumes… but a whole lot of searching later, and it looks like not much of it is online.  Bah – I had gotten all excited about buying some shoes, like these (and I think Trystan needs these!).

Posted on

Costume Accessories Exhibition

First, thanks to everyone for your kind words about my riding habit and Brunswick!  I really liked them, and I’m happy that you liked them too.  (I mean, what if I had horrible taste?)  I’m still irritated about the giant bust wrinkle on the habit, but oh well!

So, now I want to post about the Costume Accessories exhibition (next post, the symposium)!

The exhibition was really cool.  Not huge, but big enough.  What I really liked was that precisely BECAUSE it was focused on accessories, it made me notice tiny details that normally I would miss because I’d be looking at overall gowns/outfits.  A lot of people have been posting photos from the exhibition, so search around on Flickr if you’re interested; here are some of my highlights:

(Note for those reading on the LJ feed — LJ drops my image captions, so you may want to link to the post on my site if you’re interested in reading the notes that go w/ the photos!)

These photos and more from the exhibition can be found on Flickr.