… I’ve discovered instagram.

*runs away*

“Robe à la française, manteau de robe, jupe et pièce d’estomac France, vers 1775”

LAD

Georgian 18K Pearl Montgolfier Balloon Pendant Locket - late 18th century

I just figured out what my soul is worth! 1 pair of aqua 18th century silk shoes protected by coral pattens.

Image @Wall Street Journal

KCI: 

Material: Off-white Spitalfields silk brocade of gold, silver, and polychrome threads with plant pattern; trimmed with gold lace and silver gauze; matching stomacher and petticoat.

This dress, made from the gorgeous silk brocade on a white background made in Spitalfields, had come down from a Scottish castle. Three kinds of gold threads and 11 colors silk threads weaved floral pattern, on the background of curving floral pattern by white silk tread and striped pattern by silver thread, and the entire textile has shot the glittering of gold and silver. Not only the picturesque design of this textile, but also the ground design showing the complex of techniques, this textile shows height of technique of Spitalfields silk in the mid-18th century.

At Spitalfields in the East End of London, the silk industry was developed around 1700. During the mid-1800s, the high quality of Spitalfields’ designs and fabrics rivalled the well-renowned textiles of Lyon, France. Queen Charlotte (1744–1818), wife of English King George III, willingly wore the dress of Spitalfields silk fabrics to encourage it.

Full Dress

English, c. 1760

Spitalfield’s silk brocaded lustring

Gift of the Arizona Costume Institute 1983.c.94.A-B

“Spitalfields, once the site of a twelfth-century hospital and previously known as “Hospital Fields,” became a refuge for Protestant weavers fleeing religious persecution after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The woven silks that these artisans produced throughout the eighteenth century were renowned for their fineness and beauty. In 1756 one commentator remarked of the patterns produced by Spitalfields and others, “The spring opens her bountiful treasure every year, and clothes and enamels the earth with endless charms of beauty; she invites us to imitate her as near as possible in all her splendor… what should be the reason manufacturers should not exert their skill in furnishing ladies with dresses suitable to Spring, and garnish them with the sweet blossoms and flowers that season affords.”

This robe à la française is made of a brocaded lustring, typical of Spitalfields design and quality. Lustring, a light crisp silk woven in a fine tabby, attained its high sheen through a particular treatment of the warp (lengthwise yarns). First coated with beer, the warp was then stretched and heated before weaving to impart crispness and shine to the fabric. Silk brocades, in which separate wefts form the all over, interwoven design of the raised motif, were one of the most widely used fabrics of the eighteenth-century. The most important and expensive part of an eighteenth-century dress was the textile, fineness in construction being the least important and least expensive.

This piece was worn for appearance at court or other formal occasions. It consists of an overdress with a closed bodice and open skirt that allows the separate petticoat or skirt to show.” 

Court Gown, c. 1760

Silver tissue woven with multi-colored foil flowers and trimmed with gold lace

European

Gift of Mrs. Sybil Harrington, in memory of Sally Harrington Goldwater     1979.c.482.A-B

“The art of French dress had become so luxurious that by the eighteenth-century all of the European courts adopted French styles—even the staunchest enemies of France. In 1756 an English commentator noted, “The French designers are at present esteemed the most happy in their inventions. The natural freeness of composition is really admirable, and suited to the purpose intended for without crowding things together, but display them with a careless air, beauty and delicacy, and no wonder that all the rest of the European nations take the French fashion of ornaments, for their rule and pattern to imitate.” 

The character of eighteenth-century dress comes from its exaggerated scale— of fabrics, ornamentation, accessories, hairstyles—and limitations of movement imposed by this aesthetic. When leading members of European society attended court functions, the metallic threads and ornamentation of these garments glimmered in the candlelit, mirrored, and gilded rooms of the palaces. 

This court robe à la française is actually fitted close to the body all around but appears to be corseted only in the front. An inner lining made of linen laces down the center back and holds the bodice front close to the body while allowing the generously pleated back to flow away from the body in pleats from the shoulder.

Louis XIV’s encouragement of French industry resulted in the production of luxurious silks with rich, flowing patterns that were shown to full advantage by hoop petticoats or panniers. These undersupports reached their widest at the middle of the eighteenth-century, by the end of the century, they were worn exclusively at court. ”

Sorry it’s such a long thing to read but I couldn’t cut it because it was so wonderfully written!

(Source: arizonacostumeinstitute.com)

Material: Blue Lyons silk brocade with white floral stripe; trimmed with self fabric and fry fringe; matching stomacher and petticoat.

The gown, petticoat and stomacher are decorated with the same fabric three-dimensionally sewn up and the fry fringes. This elegant Rococo-style dress has both subtlety and floridness, and was used for formal dress. The textile was made by elaborately combining satin with “canelé” and other fabric, and precisely weaving a small rose-garland pattern on the white area in the stripes. The combinations of stripes and flowers in textiles were popular in this period, and this textile shows tendency for lightness of fashion that would become remarkable in the late 18th century.

KCI

Portrait of Catherine II in front of a Mirror , Between 1762 and 1764 Erichsen (Ericksen), Virgilius

V&A: This is a magnificent example of English court dress of the mid-18th century. It would have been worn by a woman of aristocratic birth for court events involving the royal family. The style of this mantua was perfectly suited for maximum display of wealth and art; this example contains almost 10lb weight of silver thread worked in an elaborate ‘Tree of Life’ Design. The train is signed ‘Rec’d of Mdme Leconte by me Magd. Giles’. The name Leconte has been associated with Huguenot embroideresses working in London between 1710 and 1746. The Huguenots were French Protestants who, following the repressive measures against them that the Catholic monarch Louis XIV of France restarted in 1685, emigrated to Britain and elsewhere.