In later years the word "sacque" comes up freqently in the french fashion journals I have. Most often under the term "dressing sacque" or "combing sacque". From the illustrations that are in the journals the dressing sacque is a long loose gown that falls from the shoulders, meant to be worn after undergarments are put on - but before the actual dress or other outer garment was put on. One supposes that if you were puttering around in your bedroom before finishing dressing - you'd slip one of these on. In the pictures that I looked at, they were all very plain and without embellishment - as opposed to "dressing gowns" which are highly embellished in the illustrations.
The "combing sacque" is a garment that is only waist-length, and fastenes at the center front neckline. These are mostly plain, but sometimes have a little inserted lace or a yoke. According to the descriptions, they were meant to be put on after you were dressed, and while you were combing or brushing your hair. Their purpose seems to be to prevent shed hair from ending up on the clothing you were wearing out in public. I suspect that this usage (1890 - 1903) is probably derived from your older garments. Janyce Hill Vintage Pattern Lending Library www.vpll.org On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Laura Rubin <rubin.lau...@gmail.com>wrote: > The first thing that comes to mind is actually the term "smock", in > the sense of a British farmer's smock - the overgarment that protects > their normal clothes from rough work. Any chance you could post a > picture for us to look at? > > -Laura > > > Message: 12 > Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:29:50 -0700 (PDT) > From: "WorkroomButtons.com" <westvillagedrap...@yahoo.com> > To: Historical Costume <h-cost...@indra.com> > Subject: [h-cost] Need information on "sacque" garments (NOT the > dress) > Message-ID: > <1316014190.86497.yahoomailclas...@web130224.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > > Back at the Reed Homestead... we are moving on to the next pile -- > stacks and stacks of shirt-like garments with no closures (other than > a few with ties at the neck). > > We hired a woman in 1995 to start pulling clothing literally out of > garbage bags and start cataloging. (Sadly, we still have pieces from > 1809 still in garbage bags -- yes, the black plastic kind.)? She > called these shirt-like garments "sacques" and this is want she wrote > about them... > > "...I would like someone after me to write the word "sacque" which is > what we're going to use for the generic term.? A sacque is a garment > which hangs from the shoulder down without interruption, without > darts, without a waist seam, so a man's sacque coat is one that was > not cut in at the waist.? And that seems to be a generic form for this > style if garment, no matter how it's being used, but as I said before > and you got on the VCR I think, these can be used as a working garment > with a skirt, held in place with an apron.? They can be used as a > short nightgown for hot weather and when somebody is ill and is using > a bedpan.? They can be used over your dress when you're doing your > hair and that's probably about it.? Oh, yes, and the other thing is > for maternity, when it's an expandable top for when you're pregnant > and obviously can be used for nursing as well.? And nobody has as many > as you have." > > We have attempted to locate information about this type of garment, > but clearly we're looking in the wrong places because we're coming up > empty. We can find "saques" certainly but they don't look like ours. > > Any ideas? > > Dede O'Hair > _______________________________________________ > h-costume mailing list > h-costume@mail.indra.com > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
