> Just an 'aside' -- Although the moern safety pin might have been invented > around 1845, the Princeton Art Museum has a safety pin in their ancient > Greek and Roman collection. >
The "invention" is only for the safety pin as we know it today. Bronze Age folks also had fibulae, just not exactly what we have. . > 2. What about pockets? I cannot find any references or photos that show > skirts had pockets--were they still using a little pouch tied at the waist > under the dress? Is it reasonable to design a watch pocket in the skirt? > Yes pocket, in the waistband seam. > 4. I have some references that women (of working classes at least) would > have had aprons that might be made from previously worn-out dresses or > skirts. For an upper-middle-class lady, who probably took care of her own > children and house to a large extent (her husband was off at war) , would > that be the case, or would she have worn a newer apron (i.e. white or a > solid color; cotton or linen)? Were all aprons the "pinner" > aprons? That's what I can find--either those or just the skirt aprons > that tied in back. > Aprons might be fancy and non-functional for higher class women. I've seen some embroidered taffeta examples from the 1860s or 70s (no dates, only embroidery style to identify them). These tied on at waist. Also think I've seen tie-on aprons of recycled fabric on working women. > 5. I am not planning to wear hoops, although most of the photos of the > time time seem to imply them, i.e. full, wide skirts. Once the war was > really underway, and there was starting to be some early financial > hardships--were the hoops scrapped in favor of petticoats? Working women often dispensed with hoops for work. But Punch satirizes those who didn't, and knocked over household bric-a-brack. -- Carolyn Kayta Barrows -- “The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.” -William Gibson -- _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
