Black & White

An 1837 Dress with Ruffles for the Ensemble Eclectica Paper Dolls

An 1837 dress with matching bonnet for a paper doll. Printable in black and white for coloring.
A printable 1837 dress with a matching bonnet for a paper doll. Simply print it out, cut it out, and dress up your paper doll.

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This 1837 dress is from France. So, I’ve hopped across the channel to Paris for this one. One thing to notice about French fashions is that they are a little more edgy than English fashion and necklines were much lower.

I mean, we’re not talking like thongs here. It’s still the 1830s, but the French fashions just aren’t as stiff as the English ones. Of course, English fashion magazines were constantly ripping off French plates and copying them, so I don’t know! It’s all a whirl.

A fashion plate from 1837 published in Le Follet Magazine.
Le Follet Fashion plate from 1837

Anyway, Le Follet, the magazine from which this dress is based, does not offer handy labels. You can see the plate from the Los Angeles Public Library. So, I don’t know for sure what the purpose of this dress was. Based on the sleeves, the design of the plate, and fabric colors, I am 85% sure it was daywear.

A few things you might be noticing about the second half of the 1930s- necklines get a little lower, sleeves are much full and skirts get longer. There’s also a reduction, I think, in general whimsy and fashion becomes more somber.

Personally, I find it less fun, but then I’ve always been a more is more sort of person when it comes to historical fashion.

One thing is I wish I’d done a slightly better job of planning my paper dolls hair. In hindsight, being 20/20 as it is, I could have done wigs and that would have made the curls less of a challenge work around with the bonnets.

However, I didn’t think of that until I was literally writing up this post.

I do plan to do something with these when they’re all done. A book perhaps or an Etsy download or something, because I have more dresses I haven’t posted. So, maybe when I get to that point I’ll figure out the hair.

The nice thing about working digitally is that figuring out the hair will not require whiteout. I do not miss using white out.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this little 1837 dress.

Next up, we’ll have 1838 and 1839 and then it’ll be a wrap on the 1830s paper doll project. If everything goes as planned, we should be done by the end of the month.

I’m so happy with how it all came together and I’ve learned so much in the process. I hope you’re learned something following along.

Soiree Styles for the Cut & Color Collection for my Patrons

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An 1836 Morning Dress for Ensemble Eclectica

A coloring page of a printable paper doll morning dress from 1836.
A printable paper doll morning dress from 1836 colored in brown and pink.

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A fashion plate from Ladies Pocket Magazine from 1836. showing morning dress in brown
May 1836 Fashion plate from Ladies Pocket Magazine

Today’s dress from 1836 is a morning dress. Morning dresses were very casual and usually worn in the morning. As I’ve mentioned before, clothing got progressively more formal as you moved through the day. So, morning clothing was the most casual. Ballgowns for evening events were the most formal. There were also court gowns worn at court, but that’s a whole subsection of 19th century clothing that I am not going to dive into in this 1830s paper doll collection.

So, back to morning dresses. Morning dresses still had come in all sorts of levels of formality of course- the actual bathrobe to the sort of “lounging clothes” that you might wear to run to the store. I can’t say I’ve never gotten groceries in pajama pants (though I confess I tend to avoid it unless I am really desperate.)

The fashion plate comes from Ladies’ Pocket Magazine from May 1836. Ladies’ Pocket Magazine was a English publication printed out of London and it came out monthly. I find the plates in it are very mixed. Some are lovely and some much less so. I think they are pretty poor in the early 1800s and get better in the 1830s.

A key accessory paired with morning dresses was a cap, typically used to cover the hair. These caps were elaborately styled despite the casual nature of the ensemble. The one depicted alongside this dress is ruffled, adorned with charming bows, adding a touch of whimsy and individuality. One detail I particularly loved in the accompanying fashion plate is how the ribbon on the cap intentionally does not match the dress, creating an interesting contrast.

When I rendered this dress, I think I did an okay job, but I don’t think I really effectively captured the shape of the sleeves. Still, given that this isn’t an era I’m super familiar with, I’m pretty happy with the outcome over all.

An 1830s paper doll evening dress for the Ensemble Eclectica

A printable 1830s paper doll page coloring page edged in a floral berry design illustrating am evening gown from 1835 with long sleeves and a ribbon the waist. The skirt is full and ankle length. There is also a wig for the paper doll showing off a top knot decorated in flowers.
A printable paper doll page edged in a floral design illustrating a gown from 1835 with long sleeves and a ribbon the waist. The skirt is full and ankle length. The gown is a maroon purple color. A 1830s paper doll evening dress to print and play with.

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As you know, if you’ve been following long since December, I’ve been drawing a series of 1830s dresses, trying to draw one dress from each year of the decade. So, today’s gown is an 1830s paper doll evening dress, specifically from 1835. You can see all the gowns I’ve done up to this point and chose your favorite. Don’t worry if you’re not as into 1830s fashion as I am these days, I do have some other non-1830s paper doll things in the works.

In general, the basic rules of dressing in the 1830s: High-necklines for day, lower necklines for evening. Long sleeves are usually less formal than short sleeves. Given these guidelines, what we’re looking at here is an evening dress intended for dinner wear. Not a ballgown, but something worn to a nice dinner party. As the 1830s continued, you begin to see slightly longer skirts as you can tell from today’s 1835 evening dress.

A fashion plate from 1835 that appeared in the Ladies Pocket Magazine.
An English fashion plate from August 1835.

Fun fact: This was actually the first dress I drew for this whole project.

In choosing colors, I did my best to color match the original plate, because I found the deep maroonish-purple a really interesting color. Not one I would normally be attracted too. Wig got slightly edited to accommodate the paper dolls ringlet curls.

So, this design comes from a fashion plate in Ladies Pocket Magazine. The magazine was in print from 1824 until 1839. It published inferior copies of plates from other magazines, so the quality is sometimes lesser than what you see in higher end publications.

What’s interesting about Ladies’ Pocket Magazine is that it shows how fashion information spread, because magazines would simply copy each other. The cheaper the magazine, the more likely it contained copies from more expensive magazines. This information transmission pattern illustrates one way fashion spread from those creating trends to those following them.

It’s important to never forget that fashion magazines were aspirational. They didn’t always illustrate what people were wearing in a time period, as much as they illustrated what people aspired towards wearing. By the way, social media plays a similar role today. It’s going to be really interesting to see in the future how the fashion information landscape evolves.

I digress. Get me talking about fashion history and information ecosystems and you know, I will happily go on and on.

I hope you’re enjoying the 1830s as much as I am. Next up after this 1830s paper doll evening dress is a morning dress from 1836.

Exploring 1830s Women’s Underwear in Paper Dolls with Ensemble Eclectica

A coloring page paper doll wearing 1830s women's underwear. She also has on drawers, a chemise, drawers and walking shoes. Her hair is styled in ringlet curls.
A printable paper doll in color wearing an 1830s women's underwear. Her corset is blue. She also has on drawers and walking shoes.

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The biggest fashion event of the 1830s was when Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837. Suddenly, curls were out and straight hair was in. Furthermore, Queen Victoria had a pretty conservative style, so necklines got higher and skirts got longer. Things began to get much less flamboyant as we move into the 1840s (which does make me a little sad.) Because of all the changes in hair, I thought it was important to make a second 1830s paper doll as well, so here she is. Her hair is parted dead center with curls over her ears. This impacted her bonnets in ways I hadn’t planned when I started.

Her walking shoes are based on this pair from Shoe Icons. I wanted to give her different shoes than my other 1830s paper doll.

Because I am creating paper dolls, there are technical limitations in illustrating underwear. It has to be able to be layered over properly for the gowns. So, I generally keep it simpler than it might have actually been in the time period. Really, early Victorian period women’s underwear was pretty darn complicated.

Late 1830s women’s underwear typically consisted of a pantalettes, chemise, petticoats, and a corset. The chemise was a loose slip-like garment made from lightweight cotton or linen, worn directly against the skin to protect outer clothing from perspiration. Chemises typically had wide necklines. Pantalettes (or “drawers”) covered the legs for modesty.

Her corset is based on this one from the Met. I made it blue, because I like blue. Speaking of corsets, the term “stays” was mostly out of use by this time. Corsets provided support through seams and cording, but more boning was starting to be used. (Boning, as usual, doesn’t mean actual bones. It’s whale baleen. Whale baleen was a by-product of the whaling industry, but that’s a whole different post on a whole different website.) By the end of the decade, corsets are starting to look like this with a lot more boning and a much more complicated design.

Are you still enjoying the 1830s with me? Ready to finish out the decade? Did you miss any of the paper dolls? You can grab them all under the early victorian fashion project tag.

An Opera Gown from 1833 in another Color for My Patrons

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An Opera Gown from 1833 for the Ensemble Eclectica

A paper doll coloring page which is an Opera dress from 1833. Part of the 1830s fashion history paper doll project. Printable to cut out at home.
A pink dress with white bows down the front which is an Opera dress from 1833. Part of the 1830s fashion history paper doll project. Printable to cut out at home.

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It’s Christmas eve and had this project gone the way I had originally intended, there was going to be whole potential Christmas Carol tie in with the 1840s. Obviously, that didn’t happen. So, instead, I have this entirely not holiday related 1833 opera dress for our 1830s fashion history paper doll. Truth be told, I find the holidays a little exhausting, so I am actually okay with not being the most festive place on the internet.

There’s plenty of hyper-festive places out there if that’s your preference.

An Opera Dress from 1833 from the Casey Fashion Plate Index.

So, let’s talk about opera dresses. In the 1830s, opera dresses occupied a unique position in fashion, blending elements of both daywear and evening wear. Since attending the opera required going out, these dresses often included a bonnet, which was a daytime accessory. However, because the opera was an evening event, opera dresses typically featured lower necklines, similar to those of evening or dinner dresses. Despite this, they were still less formal than full ballgowns. Later in the 19th century, opera attire evolved further with the introduction of highly decorative opera coats, worn over dresses for added elegance.

As I mentioned when I was talking about the 1831 walking dress, evening dresses can be identified by having necklines that are much lower than day dresses. I chose this opera dress, because I really loved the bow details on the skirt. I decided against blue for the color scheme, because I’ve already done a blue dress for this 1830s fashion history paper doll. How many blue dresses does one paper doll need? After reading up on the 1830s in English Women’s Clothing of the Nineteenth Century by C. Willett Cunnington, I settled on rose instead. According to Cunnington, rose was one of the colors popular in the early 1830s. My own observations of fashion plates seems to corroborate this observation. There’s a lot of pink.

For those of you who celebrate, I hope you have a lovely Hanukkah and Christmas tomorrow. I plan to spend mine doing very little, though if I feel up for it, I might bake some cookies.

Later this week, there will be a second color scheme for this gown for my supporting Patrons as a thank you for all their incredible support this year. There might be a third post this week. I’m not sure yet. Things are a little complicated at present.

A Walking Dress from 1831 for Ensemble Eclectica

This is a paper doll dress is an 1831 walking dress in full color with a matching bonnet.
This is a paper doll coloring page is an 1831 walking dress with a matching bonnet.

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Today’s paper doll gown is an 1831 walking dress. When I wrote about the 1830’s carriage dress last week, I talked about the silhouette of this era. So, I’ll save you all from having to listen to all that over again and focus on walking dresses.

Fashion plate from the June 1831 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum digitized by the LA Public Library showing a pair of walking dresses.
Fashion plate from the June 1831 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum digitized by the LA Public Library

Like that carriage dress, this 1831 walking dress is designed for daytime wear and intended for outdoor activities like walking. Dresses like this could also be worn when attending informal events, such as visits, shopping, or afternoon social gatherings. Like most day dresses of the 1830s, the necklines were high, covering the collar bone. Along with the dress, there were essential accessories- bonnets and gloves. These bonnets were often quite large with wide brims to shield the face from the sun and covered in lots of ribbon trim. Just like the dresses of the 1830s, bonnets were lavish.

This gown appeared in the The Lady’s Monthly Museum in June 1831. This magazine is a treasure trove of 1830s culture with serials, poetry, music, and, of course, lots of fashion.

When I was reinterpreting this dress for my paper doll, there were several elements that I really loved, both because of the design and in terms of how they reflected 1830s fashion. One of the first things that stood out to me was the color combination. I really liked the periwinkle blue paired with the green. This color combination felt fresh and historically appropriate, as the 1830s saw a wide range of bold and contrasting color choices in women’s fashion. Green was particularly popular, because of the development of artificial green pigments, like Paris green in 1814 and the earlier Scheele’s green.

Unfortunately, this type of green pigment was made from arsenic compounds, so it was very toxic. That didn’t dull it’s popularity. Generally, people didn’t realize how toxic these green dyes could be and it wasn’t until the 1890s that they were discontinued, though green fell out of fashion as a fashion color in the 1860s which might have something to do with the toxicity of the dye. Who knows? It did stick around as an insecticide into the 1930s and 1940s.

Man, history is weird. It boggles my mind to think that this dye/paint pigment, which was so popular in the 1830s, later became used as an insecticide. The things I learn researching paper dolls…

Fashion history often intersects with other unexpected parts of culture in such funny ways. I digress, as I often do.

Next up will be a dress from 1832 later this week.

The Carriage Dress: 1830 for Ensemble Eclectica

A printable coloring page of an 1830s paper doll dress. It is a carriage dress with military details and matching bonnet.
A printable 1830s paper doll dress. It is a carriage dress with military details and matching bonnet in a rich teal green.

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Today’s 1830s paper doll dress is a carriage dress from June 1830. I’ve always loved the military inspired dresses of the 1830s and this is a great example.

Like any period of fashion, the 1830s had a specific fashionable silhouette. Women sought to achieve a wide, soft sloped shoulder line, very small waist, and full bell-shaped skirt that hit the ankles. The big sleeves, the wide skirts, the belts- all of these disparate elements came together to create the appearance of a smaller waist. The exaggerated fashionable silhouette is both charming and, at times, a little disquieting to the modern eye, I think. In poorly illustrated fashion plates, it sometimes ends up looking quite terrifying. For years, I disliked it. I remember as a child and teen seeing these dresses and thinking they looked so dumb.

A fashion plate from the publication The Lady's Monthly Museum in June of 1830 showing a carriage dress. This image is from the LA Public Library's Casey Fashion Plate Index.
Fashion plate from the June 1830 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum digitized by the LA Public Library

Now that I’m older, I’ve actually come to find a sort of charm to the 1830s. Yes, it looks very silly, but there’s some real whimsy here. It’s such a ridiculous looking period in western fashion that I find it endearing. I also think there is tendency to think of the Victorian period as sepia-toned and very elegant, but I love the 1830s for being silly.

Let us embrace silly looking clothing!

So, this is a carriage dress. Carriage dresses were slightly more formal than walking dresses and were worn for carriage rides. They almost always feature a matching bonnet and as day dresses, they have a high neckline. (Basic 1830s rule of thumb: If the dress is a day dress, the neckline covers the collar bone. Evening dresses don’t, while ball gowns get positively risque with their necklines.)

This carriage dress was published in a fashion plate in the June 1830 issue of The Lady’s Monthly Museum which was a British periodical publication (so like a modern magazine) that started in 1798. It went through a few name changes and mergers, but ran until 1847. Along with fashion plates, it published biographies and portraits of famous aristocratic people, essays, and poems. Serialized stories also appeared in the Lady’s Monthly Museum, often before being published as novels. The magazine was quite successful and very exclusively aimed at women.

When I was reinterpreting this dress for my paper doll, I actually simplified it- which seems hard to imagine. The bonnet especially, because I wasn’t sure how to get the long trailing ribbons in a way that would work for the paper doll. I sort of regret omitting them, because they’re so typical of the period.

Lastly, and I want to be very clear here, this is a sort of new time period to me and I was learning as I drew this 1830s paper doll dress.

An 1830s Paper Doll Printable with her Historical Underwear for Ensemble Eclectica

An 1830s printable paper doll coloring page wearing a set of 1830s underwear consisting of a corset, pantalettes, and chemise. Her hair is up in curls and her shoes are tied with ribbon laces. Commentary on the image describes each of these parts.
An 1830s printable paper doll with a set of 1830s underwear consisting of a red corset, drawers, and chemise. Her brunette hair is up in curls and her shoes are tied with ribbon laces.

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The Backstory of All This

I originally planned to spend all of December on a big project. It was going to be a series of paper dolls from 1830 to 1859. Julie Matthews’ December themes (like this one from 2015) inspired this idea, back when I started thinking about it. However, that didn’t quite go as planned — life happens. And that’s okay. My new plan is slightly smaller in scope. I’ll be posting paper dolls with historical clothing from the 1830s (and maybe 1840s and 1850s) on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of December and possibly into January. Who can say? Not me.

I tend to hesitate about sharing things before they’re complete, because I dislike leaving projects undone. But lately, I’ve realized that’s a bit silly. Drawing paper dolls isn’t life or death, and it’s okay if things don’t go exactly as planned. I’d rather share what I’ve done and keep moving forward than leave the work sitting unfinished on my laptop. Plus, I think you’ll enjoy seeing the project even if it doesn’t work out like I had originally imagined it would.

In fact, no one would know I’d planned to do the 1840s and 1850s, if I hadn’t said anything. But here I am, being very honest. (I haven’t even started collecting reference images for the 1850s, so I am quite behind on that one. Probably won’t happen, which makes me sort of sad, honestly.)

Women’s Underwear In the Early 1830s

So, let’s talk a little about 1830’s women’s underwear, since today’s 1830s paper doll printable is a lady with some undies on. I based her underwear off this set from the V&A museum, though I made the stays/corset colorful based on this one.

In the 1830s, women’s underwear primarily consisted of a chemise, pantalettes, petticoats and a corset/stays. (Fun fact: The words “corset” and “stays” are both used in the 1830s, but the term “stays” largely falls out of use by the end of the decade.) Generally, these corsets used seams and cording providing support, rather then boning. (Also, boneing doesn’t mean bones- it means whale baleen.)

The chemise was a loose, knee-length garment made from lightweight cotton or linen, worn directly against the skin to safeguard outer garments from perspiration. Chemise’s had wide necklines. Pantalettes (also spelled pantaletes) or drawers covered the legs and provided some more modesty. I can’t seem to definitively determine which is the more precise term. Both terms seem to have been employed to describe similar garments and I’m not an expert on 1830s clothing.

Though not appearing in this 1830s paper doll printable, petticoats supported the wide skirts of the era. Here’s a lovely example from the Met. This is before anyone invented hoopskirts, so women wore lots of petticoats. Additionally, women often wore sleeve supports (like this or these) to get the right shape for the huge puffed sleeves of the era called, “sleeve puffs” which is the most wonderful name. I didn’t add sleeve puffs to the paper doll, because I wanted flexibility with sleeve shape, as it changes throughout the decade, and the puffs would have made that more difficult. Sometimes with paper dolls, functionality has to trump historical accuracy. (But man… I really do want to draw sleeve puffs someday.)

Foxglove & Butterflies: Cut & Color Couture

A printable black and white foxglove princess paper doll coloring page with a doll, a dress and an overdress decorated with foxglove.

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Last week, I posted Ruffles and Dragons, a paper doll gown that Chinese motifs inspired. After I finished drawing that paper doll, I became fascinated with the idea of doing a totally different feeling dress with the same silhouette of the overdress and a different under dress. So, I ended up with this foxglove princess paper doll.

Stained glass inspired this princess paper doll’s gown. My mother makes beautiful stained glass and I was thinking of stained glass lamps, especially the way the leading on stained glass highlights and breaks things into shapes.

I drew the foxglove, because I really love foxglove flowers. It’s one of the few plants that grows super well in Southeast Alaska where I grew up. Also, as a kid, I thought it was cool how poisonous it is while being so pretty looking. I was trying to stretch a little. I also thought the shape would fit will into the panels of the overdress. So, while it wasn’t really a well planned project, that’s how I ended up with a foxglove princess paper doll.

The underdress I had originally planned to pair with the dragon overdress, but I didn’t think the ribbons really fit in with the dragons. That was when I came up with the idea of the spirals that I used on that dress. So, for this dress, I was thinking about white victorian gowns. Ruching details decorate the sides of the bodice.

I’m really excited about how this gown turned out. It’s been fun to explore new themes and experiment with different influences—stained glass, nature, and princess dresses. While the process wasn’t entirely planned, that’s okay! I think sometimes things are fun as little experiments. As always, feel free to share your thoughts or suggestions for future designs — I’d love to hear what inspires you.

Ruffles & Dragons: Cut & Color Couture

A storybook princess paper doll coloring page with a gown decorating with dragon motifs and a fancy hair-do. She has accessories. The doll is Asian and Chinese clothing inspired the motifs on the dresses.

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Happy Friday!

I confess that I’ve been struggling to focus on anything paper doll related this last few days. Had I been on the ball, I would have pre-scheduled things, but I didn’t. Eh. The world keeps turning, so here we are.

Moving on from that, today’s paper doll coloring page is my first Asian paper doll for the Cut and Color Couture series. Chinese clothing inspired the motifs on the dress and the over dress. I don’t like attaching ethnicity to my paper dolls, but describing her as a paper doll with an epicanthic fold on her eyes is probably not going to play nice with the search engines. (And like it or not, a certain amount of playing nice with Search Engines is how I have to roll.)

I originally designed this paper doll’s dress as an experiment in layering two pieces over each other. Back when I was a kid, I really love layered bid skirted dresses. I used to buy this one sticker paper doll over and over again called the Storybook Princess paper doll. It was only 1.50 in those days. It is a sticker paper doll book (which I was delighted to find out you can still buy it.) The doll had tops and skirts you could put together to make princess gowns. It’s a great paper doll.

In honor of that love of princess gowns, I designed my own storybook princess paper doll version. The spiral motifs on both the dress and the overdress are somewhat based on the motifs you see on 19th century Chinese clothing. This Han women’s jacket, this sleeveless jacket, or this Manchu woman’s outer gown all have spiral designs on them. It’s a very loose connection, but that’s what was inspiring me.

The dragons were originally going to be butterflies, but I draw a lot of butterflies. So, I thought dragons would be a bit more of a change of pace. I don’t love the design I ended up with, because it feels a little too aggressive. This doesn’t really reflect that you see with dragons as decorative motifs on actual Chinese pieces.

Dragons show up on a lot as Chinese decorative motifs, you can see some here from the Jin Dynasty or this one from a roof tile or these on a dragon robe. My limited understanding is that Dragon robes, also known as gunlongpao, were worn by Chinese emperors. To count as a dragon, it has to have five claws. My dragons only have four claws, which I think means they are not imperial dragons. (I think? I ended up down a whole four-clawed vs five-clawed dragon rabbit hole and I still don’t totally know that difference in how they were used. I do know one had four and one had five claws. That’s all I got.)

Anyway, I digress.

This is the first of two of these designs, because I was having a lot of fun with that overdress. The second version is more floral. That might be up next week.