American Duchess Historic Shoes Blog
Simplicity Pattern Catalog, August 1940
Simplicity Pattern Catalog, August 1940 About a month ago I acquired my first vintage counter book - you know, the big pattern catalogs we go and flip through at the...
What The Heck Is This 18th Century Dress?
I keep a Pinterest Board called "Historical Costuming Weirdness," wherein I pin all the things I find that don't match up nicely with what we think we know about historical...
Regency Foxed Slippers - Inspo
The Met, c. 1805-10 As we near the end of 2016 and look towards 2017, it's time to think about new historic shoe styles. Yaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!! Whenever I start musing on...
Finding Inspiration in the 1790s with Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
Self Portrait by Vigee-Lebrun, 1791 Those of you who have been following for awhile will know I'm not a huge fan of, well, anything with an empire waist. I just...
The Great China Adventure, Or, How Jet-Lag is Evil
Hello Lovelies! Abby here - sort of... Jet lag is evil & mean. But I'm here in body, even if that means my circadian rhythms are still totally bananas and...
1830s Corset Inspiration & Research
Hello Lovelies - So I'm plugging away on my 1830s corset, and all seems to be going to plan...which is good seeing as how when I picked up my needle...
The Original 1916 - 1921 Party Dress
Well, this is a topic I can genuinely say I haven't blogged about before. It's amazing what send us down what rabbit holes. Metal thread embroidery with couched metal. These...
The Problem with "Always" and "Never" in Historical Costuming
Dress - 1864-67 - cotton - The Met < soapbox > Every once in awhile some new statements will pop up in this community that make me balk. These statements...
Artifact: Paragon Home Shoe Button Kit
In my journey of studying and recreating old-fashioned footwear, I get to geek out on old technologies re-discovered. I just love the how and why of things: the effect an...
The Historical Costumer's Holiday Book List
I don't know about you, but about 90% of what's on my Christmas list this year is books on historical costuming. We in the community are lucky to have so...
Studying Up on Tudor Footwear
Mary Rose Shoes - via Tudor shoes are old. They're about as old as we get for extant shoes, with the exception of a very few Medieval examples. It's quite...
The Versatile 18th Century Market Hat
On my trip to Colonial Williamsburg this week, I decided to be bold and attempt to underpack. The idea of wearing a different or new dress every day is a...