Category: 1775 maja

My sequins FINALLY arrived today from MJ Trim — I decided to buy some of their plastic sequins in black and oyster white. I realized that the color was the most important thing, and yes they’re not made of the right material, but this outfit is all about the contrast of black/white. Unfortunately I had them accidentally shipped to my old address, so they had to get returned and then re-shipped to me… but they didn’t charge me for the second shipping, which was great!

So now I need to do some experimenting with how to sew them on (luckily I’ve got 18th Century Embroidery Techniques to help), but first I need to get a frame. I was thinking about a tambour frame from Lacis, but then do I need something big enough to fit the entire pattern piece? If it’s smaller than the pattern piece, then I’ll have to move the fabric around, with some of the spangles ending up in the frame, which seems like a potentially bad idea (could scratch or break the spangles). Any suggestions for a size/type/supplier of embroidery frames?

Okay, so I asked the expert – Bjarne Drews – and he says the embroidery is spangles and nothing else. And that it’s impossible to find metal spangles in black and white, which I’ve confirmed through some web searching.

So now the question is – use plastic sequins? Or switch the color to silver (or possibly gunmetal, if I could find that) so that I can use metal? I do think gunmetal would be a good compromise… Hmm.

I have wanted to make this dress FOREVER. Seriously. Ever since I saw it in Dress in Eighteenth Century Europe. I think I have a black & white thing, plus I love the jacket, the embroidery… the only thing I DON’T like is the snood. It’s too “Hi I bought a snood at renfaire!” So I think the hairstyle/hat will go. But otherwise!

The “maja” was a term used in late 18th and 19th century Madrid for a particular group of people: the majo/maja, who were lower class artistic people who spoke “pure” Castilian and wore elaborate outfits. Both women’s and men’s costumes were distinguished by jackets worn open, and were usually in black. The upper classes appropriated their dress as a means of being anti-French (the French being the fashion leaders of the era). Of course, if I do a French hairstyle then I’ll really be doing the aristocratic-appropriation-of-lower-class-style thing… But then hey, it’s exactly what Sophie (my French Lumieres character would do) – pick up a dress in Spain and have no idea how to wear it properly (“What do you mean – doesn’t EVERYONE wear French hairstyles BLINKBLINK?”)

So theoretically this will be my Costume College gala dress, and of course will go to some Lumieres events too!

Currently I am working on really analyzing this portrait to figure out what’s going on. The main question I have is what the embroidery is — silk, probably? Tambour? Bridget suggested it could incorporate spangles, but I feel like it’s not shiny enough – what do you think? Also, do you think those sleeves tie on, or is that just decoration? And metal buttons on the front, or some sort of thread that matches the embroidery? Check out this high res image if you want to peer at it and help me out!