black hair

Regency-Core: A 2022 Fashion Trend

A printable paper doll coloring page with an eight piece mix and match wardrobe of regencycore inspired clothing with trousers, two dresses, shoes and purses.
A printable paper doll with an eight piece mix and match wardrobe of regencycore inspired clothing with trousers, two dresses, shoes and purses.

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Today’s printable paper doll is all about regencycore. Which does lead to the next logical question… So, what is Regencycore?

Well, it’s sort of a hyper feminine style inspired by the Regency. Not the actual regency (I doubt we’ll see a neck-ruff revival), but the ideas people have of the Regency thanks to shows like Bridgerton. I’m a big Bridgerton fan and I was struck at how much I started noticing this trend in my fashion magazines and my online puttering around.

There’s a nice article about Regency-core from Women’s Wear Daily I think I highlighted this in a newsletter a few weeks back. This was my major inspiration as I designed this particular printable paper doll set. I wanted soft pastels, raised waists and lots of puffy sleeves. I also didn’t want to do a paper doll set of nothing, but basic babydoll dresses (there’s just one) and nothing else. That felt boring and not really modernizing regency. As for the puffy sleeves, I tried to get in as many variations on that shape as possible.

Along with the dresses, there’s a pair of high-waisted pleated front trousers (a trend that is returning which I am not so keen on) and I cropped most of these tops to match. I do like the fact that modern cropped tops are being paired with high-waisted pants. It’s a much better look than the hip-huggers of the 1990s.

The paper doll’s hair is based on the hair cut of Daphne from the Bridgerton tv-show. Normally when I see bangs in historical dramas I wince, because straight bangs were really not a thing in the 19th century for ladies. There were like curled ringlet sort of bangs in the Regency (see examples here), but not the bangs the paper doll or Daphne rocks. However, as mentioned, Bridgerton is a fantasy, so I am willing to embrace the bangs.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out.

Meanwhile, I want to let my Patrons know there will be patron exclusive content on Friday! So, look forward to that- Vivian is getting another outfit in her steampunk trousseau.

DDJ: Dawn & “Ancient Chinese” Inspired Fantasy Gowns

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Sometimes I draw printable paper dolls and then by the time I get ready to share them on PTP, I find myself looking at them vaguely and being like, “Why did I draw this? What was I thinking about?”

My hunch, just because I know me, is that there was a distinctly Asian thing happening with this paper doll probably inspired by this weird “ancient Chinese” costumes thing I’ve seen on Pinterest. I find it fascinating, because China has a long and varied dress history (just like everywhere else), but (maybe in part thanks to Video games) there’s a sort of generic “ancient China” look. It’s super cool looking, but kinda like the Victorian view of medieval dress, probably hasn’t got much in common with what people were actually wearing in China a thousand years ago.

I don’t know enough about the history of Chinese dress to speak with any authority, but I don’t think anyone was running around in these, but that’s okay! It’s fun and beautiful. Sometimes, fun and beautiful is enough, you know?

As they do on NPR, I tend to wrap up my posts with two reminders to folks that these paper dolls are made possible by the generous support for my Patrons, so consider joining if you wish.

A 1980s Fashion Paper Doll Ready to Rock the Board Room

A 1980s fashion paper doll coloring page with a mix and match wardrobe of professional working woman's clothing of the era.
A 1980s fashion paper doll printable with a mix and match wardrobe of professional working woman's clothing of the era.

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I fell in love with the 1980s power fashion clothing as I was looking through these old catalogs. So, clearly, the thing I needed to do was draw a 1980s fashion paper doll ready to take over the board room.

The mix and match options seemed really cool here, because so many pf these clothing pieces were designed to match with the black pencil skirts and black trousers, specifically pleated ones. Pleated trousers are super comfortable, so I can get behind that. One perk of this was that just doing two bottoms and then five tops gives a lot of options which I think is a big part of paper doll functionality- which is a passion of mine. This paper doll has 11 outfits, which is a lot for 9 pieces of clothing.

Listen, some people contemplate how to make the perfect pulled pork bbq, I think about how to make a functional one sheet paper doll. We all have our hobbies.

Patrons can, of course, mix and match these with last months’ 1980s paper doll. I don’t think my workout paper doll really mixes well with these, but Jazzercise clothing was super fun to draw.

A few other thoughts- one thing that really struck me about 1980s clothing was how color was used. If you look at the black and white sweater (original here), it’s really the way the shirt is color blocked that makes it 1980s. The pattern could be today, but something about the color blocking really dates it to the decade of the 1980s.

So now Amethyst is ready to go rock the corporate world in huge shoulder pads!

Honestly, the 1940s and the 1980s are both super into the giant shoulder pad thing and I try to get it (I do), but I just don’t. I guess if I’m going to draw a 1980s fashion paper doll I just need to get into the whole shoulder pad thing, but… Oh well, I barely understand modern fashion. I just like drawing paper dolls.

Tanya and Her Princess Gowns

A paper doll printable coloring page with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.
A black paper doll printable with one doll and her eight piece wardrobe. This fantasy inspired paper doll is two pages.

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I’m still sort of playing around with getting used to drawing for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls. I enjoy the pose and I like playing around with the motion, though I am still not 100% confident with it. It’s a fairly new pose to me and so it’s a bigger stretch than drawing for poses I’m used to drawing for. Since I’m not formally trained as an artist, and I don’t really enjoy drawing figures, it’s always a little scary working with a new pose for me.

So, anyway, this is Tanya. Tanya is the Russian diminutive of Tatiana. I named the paper doll Tanya, because I already have a Talia and a Tashi. I felt like the name Tanya fit in with the other names neatly. So, nothing too fancy there- I picked it because I liked how it sounded.

Tanya here has my first fantasy foray for the Talia Tuesday and Friends dolls, but I do love drawing princess paper dolls. Her crowns are designed to fold around the head, so you have some flexibility, if you want to use them on another doll with different hair.

If the pose is a stretch for me, this style is like cooking a recipe you’ve made a million times and know will probably come out okay. I both like drawing medieval fantasy gowns and am super comfortable drawing these fantasy princess looks. The color scheme was a bit different from many I tend to be attracted too. It feels more autumnal than I intended when I started, but I am super happy how it turned out.

As usual, a big thank you to my patrons who got to see the first proto Talia last year and helped me name Tashi, though I picked out Tanya’s name on my own. You all are the best!

More Italian Renaissance with Sapphire

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So, when I do historical clothing sets, I’ve learned drawing two takes about the same amount of time as drawing one. Of course, the downside is that I always worry if I make a mistake then I’m likely to repeat it. I’m not 100% sure about the waist lines on these, but that’s okay.

The paper doll is wearing a shift with a gathered neckline which seems to be the style in Italy. It’s a lot more fitted than these would have been for layering reasons. There’s some debate from my research in what women wore under these gowns. There’s not a lot of evidence for stays, but there’s no way to get the smooth line shown on the bust in these portraits without some sort of support either built into the bodice or underneath the bodice. If you look closely at side of the pink gown, you’ll see there’s a fold between where the armpit meets the shoulder and that suggests there is something under the bodice; however, I have not been able to find any evidence on what that undergarment might have looked like.

Later, there’s this Venetian Woman with Moveable Skirt from the 1560s and there might be a set of stays there or it might be an artistic choice to continue the bodice after the skirt is lifted. It’s tough to know. I tend to think it’s likely stays, because the work is erotic art and there’s nothing erotic about a bodice (or is there?). When I do a Venetian set (and I plan to do that someday) I’ll use that as my base design I suspect. However, we’re not working on Venetian clothing today. Today, we are in Florence.

Both of these dresses are again based on portraits. Both sitters are probably from Florence, based on professional folk’s assessments of the paintings. Lucrezia Panciatichi, for example, was the wife of Bartolomeo Panciatichi, a Florentine humanist and politician. The other sitter there’s some debate over, but her clothing does look like that which was worn in Florence according to folks who know more about this than I do which isn’t I grant you a high standard at this point.

 Portrait of a Lady in Green by Bronzino?, c. 1528-1532
Lucrezia Panciatichi by Angelo Bronzino, 1540

Despite the few small changes I might make to these in the future (and my annoyance that I couldn’t seem to track down a full length portrait to get skirt shapes right), I’m super proud that I did these despite feeling like I don’t “know enough” to do them well.

I will say that I want to do something later in the 1500s from Venice, as I mentioned, because the Venetians had these wild shoes called chopines which were platform shoes so high that women needed help walking in them. They’re so strange and I want to draw them, but I need to do more research on the clothing that would have gone with them. More research!

So, if you want to get to vote in my next paper doll content poll, join us on Patreon.

Spring Princess Gowns for Jade

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Sure, there’s still like feet of snow on the ground here and sure yesterday the high was under freezing at 29 degrees, but it is spring darn it! (Signs of spring include a longer day, muddy streets, and trees that are starting to bloom.) It’s just been a much colder spring than usual, but I would rather have a long slow slide into break up than a rapid one, so I’ll take it.

I will also complain loudly about it.

I can have contradictions in my life.

All righty, so let’s talk paper dolls. Back in 2019 or 2020 or something, I started drawing some very fancy big-skirted princess gowns that I called the Princesses and Their Gowns collection. Not really because I thought it would be a big collection, but because all the gowns used the same basic color scheme and style, so I figured it would be simple enough to group them together.

All of last years additions to the collection ended up being Patreon content, so I knew I wanted to add some more for this year and make them blog content.

I chose daffodils to decorate these gowns, because my mother always planted them and they were a favorite flower of mine. I remember my mother would always order her bulbs in the fall and sometimes they wouldn’t arrive until after the ground was frozen and, not about to let that stop her, she’d go out with boiling water and spade to plant them anyway. They always came up, one way or another.

My other favorite flower is peonies which has nothing to do with this paper doll set, but are gown up here and are just amazing in a few weeks when the farmers’ market reopens.

So, do you have a favorite flower? Let me know in a comment!

A 14th Century Fashion Paper Doll With Citrine

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It has been a while since we had a Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 paper doll, hasn’t it? It feels weird to have taken a two week break from them, but here we are.

So, I actually had this drawn last year, but I needed one more piece of clothing to fill out the set, so I had to draw some last minute shoes which delayed it’s debut until now. But I technically meant this to go along with my 14th century Pearl set. While I never meant for the 14th century to become such a common time period on this site, every time I draw another 14th century paper doll set, I feel like I learn more about the period and get better at rendering it. And I like the learning aspect.

So, Citrine here has two patterned dresses, a veil, a hood, and an extra pair of shoes. The paper doll’s shift is based one illustrated in Roman de Giron le Courtois (fol. 87v.) at the National Library of France from around 1370-1380. I’ve used the same one for my 12th century and 13th century paper dolls, so they can all share clothing. Shifts are not the easiest thing to find reference images for in this era, let me tell you. Her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz (my usual shoe source for anything this early.

The dress on the left is a sleeveless surcoat (unlike a sideless surcoat, sleeveless surcoats didn’t have huge armholes). I based the pattern on it from BNF Arsenal 3481 Ci commence li livres de Lancelot du Lac (fol. 65r). However, I’ve noticed these lines and dots patterns show a lot in medieval manuscripts and I don’t know if that is because they were easy to paint or if that is because they were commonly worn. The sleeveless surcoat shows up all over the place in early 14th century manuscripts. Here it is in Français 761: Artus le Restauré (fol. 25v) from between 1325 and 1350, in BNF Français 1433 Le Chevalier au Lion (fol. 67) from 1300-1350, and in BL Yates Thompson 13 The Taymouth Hours (fol. 107v). I think it is reasonable to say the style was super popular.

The dress on the right is a patterned surcoat with buttons which I sometimes see referred to as a Cotehardie. I don’t know enough to know if that term is correct (it is for men, I know). I was inspired to draw the pattern, because Roman de Giron le Courtois is full of these elaborate patterned dresses. The text is Italian and I wonder if that is why. Anyway, was the specific inspiration for this one was Folio 44v and Folio 75r. I have no idea what the manuscript is about, but there’s a lot of decapitated heads in it. In case you’re wondering, medieval manuscripts use Folio rather than page number, because most of them lack numbered pages.

Now that I’ve done two 1300s Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls (see Pearl here), I feel like I should do something from the 1400s, which is not a period I know as much about. However, the only way to learn is to try and so I guess I’ll add that to my to do list.

On Patreon I have a poll right now about the next time period to tackle. So, if you join us there, you can vote.