Alice Archives • Paper Thin Personas

A 14th Century Version of Alice

December 6, 2020November 19, 2018

Printable Black & White PDF Printable Color PDF More Paper Dolls & ClothesI have had several requests for early fashion history paper dolls and this week I am sharing a whole week of 14th century clothing from Europe. This is not how they were dressing in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties of China, for example. Though someday maybe I’ll feel confident enough to try out historical Chinese dress (it’s really interesting).

Okay, so about today’s paper doll…

The 14th century is one of the last eras in which women could get away with having their heads uncovered which I think is kinda nice. Her hairstyle was based on manuscript illustrations like this one and busts like this one.

Her shift is a bit more fitted than they probably would have been in the real world, but that’s because paper dolls don’t have the benefit of fabric and the layering gets to be an issue. It’s based on one of the few shifts I could find in manuscript illustration. It comes from Roman de Giron the Courtois which is a manuscript held in the National Museum of France under the call number NAF 5243. The illustration I used is on folio 87v. It’s also on a few other pages as well.

Her shoes all come from the excellent, though rather dry, book Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. It took me months to find a copy at a reasonable price, but it’s an excellent source full of drawings of archaeological footwear finds. If you know, that’s your kinda thing.

As always, a big thank you to my Patrons and if you’d like to help out the blog by making a donation, you can do that over on the Patreon page.

Also, I’m doing a poll! I posted this on my Patreon page, but I didn’t get a lot of responses, so I am hoping if I post it here I might get more. Plus I know Monday is my highest traffic day.

[poll id=”22″]

As always I reserve the right to ignore the outcome if I feel like it. 🙂 Anyway, enjoy today’s paper doll and if you have a moment, let me know what you think about 2019.

Need some clothing for today’s paper doll? All the A Pose Dolls & Clothing

Two New Alice Paper Dolls- A Brunette and Redhead

December 6, 2020August 20, 2018

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Because the first Alice was a blue eyed blond, I decided it made sense to make a green eyed brunette and a brown eyed red-head made sense for my next two Alice paper dolls. There’s also 18th century Alice, but she’s a bit unique, because she can’t share clothing with all of the other paper dolls. So, I’m not sure if I can count her, really.

The whole point of this “double-set” thing was to try to expand the number of dolls available quickly, so people would have variety. But I also have to remind myself that I can’t compare the Dames and Dandies to my other series. It’s only been around for nine months after all and things like Marisole Monday ran for years.

Instead, I am trying to think- If I could “start over” knowing now what I didn’t know when I began this blog all those years ago, what would I do? And I am trying to be smarter than I was the first time.

I like to think I am older, if not wiser than I was.

So, anyway, that means that this week will be all double-sets. So, we’ll have 2 A pose and 1 B pose. I know the C pose is being neglected and I do feel bad for the guys, but I can’t fit two of those dolls on a single sheet as far as I can tell. So, they’re going to have to wait, but fear not- I have a steampunk version, a fantasy version and an elf all in progress for them, but until then- enjoy the A pose dames and their shoes.

And if you love the blog, than please support it through Pateron, follow me on Social Media or leave a comment. I love to hear from y’all.

Need a clothing for today’s paper dolls? All the A Pose Dolls & Clothing

Alice Goes to the 18th Century

March 12, 2018

Printable Black & White PDF Printable Color PDF More Paper Dolls & ClothesI love costume history and the 18th century is a favorite era of mine. I wanted to design an 18th century paper doll and I chose Alice as the model. Because of the paper doll’s historic underwear, she won’t be able to wear all the A Pose clothing. I made the decision that I was more concerned with having period underwear than with having versatility.

So, what underwear is she wearing? Well, Alice is wearing a shift, a strapless set of stays (like these or these) and has a pocket tied around her waist (like this or this). She also has a separate set of hoops. I based them on this set of hoops from LACMA. Hoops were only worn with the most formal of gowns in the 18th century, so they won’t fit under all the 18th century paper doll gowns I ever draw.

If you look at enough pairs of mid-18th century shoes, they do start to flow together at after a while. I could literally link to dozens that are in the same basic style as Alice’s brown shoes, her red shoes and blue shoes with pattens. Here is one example, here is another and here is another. The differences come from the shape of the toe and the heel.

By the 1780s, other styles were coming into fashion. So, her brocade shoes are based on this pair from 1785 from Historic New England. By the 1790s, shoes that look more like modern kitten heels had taken over like this pair.

Her blue shoes have attached pattens, which were leather and wood oversoles meant to protect the shoes from the muck and mud. This set was my main inspiration, but here is another example of the same idea.

Historic hairstyles are a challenge for me every time. I’m still learning enough to illustrate them properly, but for today’s 18th century paper doll I really wanted to draw something that was as not too over the top. I used my historic hair style books and portraits, including this one, this one and this one. I could have gone gray with her hair, but I just didn’t really like how it looked.

Wednesday, there will be a gown for today’s 18th century paper doll version of Alice.

Need a clothing for today’s paper doll? All the A Pose Dolls & Clothing

Meet Alice: The First of the New Printable Paper Doll Series

December 6, 2020January 1, 2018

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Happy New Year!

This is the first post of the new series, Dames and Dandies. I really should be calling it the only paper doll series, but we’ll stick with new paper doll series for now.

There will be three poses for these printable paper dolls. This is the A Pose. There will also be a B Pose. And a guy paper doll pose called the C pose. Right now, we’re starting with the A pose. Wednesday and Friday, I will be posting clothing for the A pose and then next Monday I’ll post the first doll in the B pose series.

C pose guy paper dolls will post the week after that. Nice and alphabetical, you know? Also right now, I have more guy content than either the A or the B pose ladies. Weird… that has never happened before in my paper dolling life.

This is Alice. She is the first of the A pose dolls and this is the first version of Alice. Other Alice versions will, I suspect, follow. In fact, I already have a few in process so… not only do I suspect it, I know it to be true.

While I would love to switch to a daily updating schedule, I just don’t think there’s really very sensible with my graduate school classes starting up again in a few days. So, right now, the blog will update Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

And so, it begins… 🙂

Feel free to ask me any burning questions you may have or even just non-burning ones. The truth is that I might not have an answer yet, but I do want to hear everyone’s thoughts and concerns.

Need a clothing for today’s paper doll? All the A Pose Dolls & Clothing

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