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Vivian’s May 2023 Traveling Suit
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A Regency Lady and Her Wardrobe
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I’m going to keep this brief, since I wrote a lot of this up in the newsletter already (subscribe here) and I just don’t know if I want to repeat myself (or if anyone wants to read me repeating myself).
One of the weird/interesting things about creating the newsletter has been grappling with the transient/permanent nature of it. I’ve always thought of this blog as both an archive of my work and as a place where if I make a typo and notice three months later (which has 100% happened), I can fix it. However, the newsletters don’t work that way. Once they are sent, they are done.
And while there is an archive, they don’t feel as permanent as a series of blog posts.
Since the whole newsletter thing is an experiment to begin with, I am still trying to grapple with how I feel about all that.
Anyway, let’s talk paper dolls. So, her underwear is a generic set of short stays over a shift with stockings a shoes. My goal here wasn’t to reproduce anything specific, but to get to the basic idea of “generic underwear of this era” rather than getting into specifics. Her hair is a combination of portraits like this one and this one. I wanted a hairstyle that could easily be covered in bonnets or hats, which I knew I was going to be drawing with nearly every dress.
To start with the morning dress is from this November 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee which, despite a very French sounding name, was published in London and aimed at the fashionable set. People thought all things French were more sophisitcated than all things English. Interestingly, a lot of places will credit La Belle Assemblee fashioj plates to France on the name alone. While many of the plates in the magazine are copies of French fashion plates, the publication was definitely English.
Her cap with the morning dress has a little bit of this one and a little bit of this one, with dash of this one. So, it’s sort of a combination of caps.
The morning walking dress is really just a gown with a pelisse over it. The pelisse and bonnet were inspired by this September 1813 plate from La Belle Assemblee, again. A pelisse was a coat that was cut the same style as the dress. They came in all different styles like this one or this one. Some were made from very lightweight fabrics, but others were warm and designed as coats. Sometimes it’s hard to tell from an illustration if you’re looking at a pelisse or a gown or something in between.
The first gown on the second page (working left to right, top to bottom) is a ballgown. Ballgowns were the most formal gowns women wore with the exception of court dress and court dress has never been a big interest of mine. Court dress was governed by all sort of rules and regulations- a realm I have never wanted to dive into. The ball gown is based on this one from the Museum at FIT. The turban is from this 1815 fashion plate. Turbans were super popular in the 1810s.
The dress with the spencer is basically a walking costume. The Spencer was a jacket version of the pelisse. Both were cut to follow the lines of the dress. Spencers come in all different styles. A few that inspired this one include this 1815 yellow silk version and this March 1812 version from Ladies’ Magazine.
The Ladies’ Magazine was published in London starting in August of 1770. If I am remembering my fashion history correctly, it was the first magazine to publish a fashion plate, though the idea was quickly copied by French and German publications. My understanding is that Ladies’ Magazine was less expensive than some of the other fashion magazines of the era and the quality of the fashion plates shows this difference. Still, it’s a pretty amazing document. I have digressed a lot from our paper doll, so let’s finish up with the dinner dress.
The dinner dress’s hat is from this La Belle Assemblee fashion plate from 1817 showing an evening gown. This 1818 gown from the Met Museum inspired the dress. The color, a smoky purple, came from this fashion plate, though I do like the marine blue.
And that’s it! More, I am certain, than you wanted to know about Regency fashion and inspiration for this regency paper doll set. Tomorrow, I’ll share Vivian’s steampunk traveling suit for my Patrons.
Behind the Scenes: The story of my Styles of the 1920s Paper Doll Book
As some of you may already know (because I have sort of been screaming it from the roof tops), I have paper doll book out from Paper Doll Review and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. The book is beautiful! It’s three dolls and over 60 clothing pieces from the years 1920 to 1929. There’s hats. There’s shoes. There’s dresses, coats, and knickerbockers for sports. The whole range of ladies dress.
But the project wasn’t just my hard work- Julie Allen Matthews did an incredible job coloring my linework. She has a post about it here. Julie has colored my paper dolls before (like these ones), so I had complete faith that she would do an amazing job. More than anything, I wanted to give her freedom to do whatever inspired her with the colors and the designs, so the results were a surprise to me.
A very. nice happy surprise.
To roll back time for a minute, the whole thing didn’t start as a project for Paper Doll Review. It began as a planned self-published book during the early part of the pandemic, but I got discouraged as things happened in the real world that got in the way and prices from Lulu Press went way up. I just couldn’t justify the prices from Lulu given the quality of the printing. So when Jenny expressed interest I was happy to hand over the linework and see what would happen. Paper Doll Review‘s books are always so nicely done.
In today’s post I want to more than gush about how much I love the book (I do love it very much), but rather show some of the original sources that led to the dresses that are included.
One of the exciting things in the last few years is that the date for things that are out of copyright has moved forward annually from 1923 to 1927, which allows for a lot more of 1920s magazines to be found online.
If you’re looking for your own sources, consider the Delineator, Harper’s Bazaar, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, Vogue or Woman’s home companion. Plus, sources like the Vintage Pattern Wiki are also great places to find images of pattern covers. I wish I could find a complete Sears catalogs from this era, but they are hard to track down online. There are some of the Sears Catalogs here, plus I have a lot of books from Dover that reprint 1920s materials. There’s a few listed in the book, if you want to know more sources and information on 1920s fashion.
Needless to say, I didn’t use all these sources and now that I’ve found them, there’s probably another 1920s paper doll in my future (once I get done with the 1910s thing I am working on.)
I discovered my interest in historical costume from paper doll books. So, if I am going to do a historical paper doll, I want it to offer some learning along with paper doll fun.
So, if you haven’t picked up a copy, grab one from Paper Doll Review or wait until the Philadelphia Paper Doll Party in late May, as I will be there and have a few to sell as well along with some other paper doll prints (more about those later.)
Vivian’s Spring House Dress for April 2023
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Jewels & Gemstones: Floral Elves Paper Dolls
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Well, when I decided to shift to this newsletter and monthly update schedule, I did not consider the downsides. The biggest one being that it’s much harder for me to step away as might be needed from time to time. I need to think on that, but I am enjoying the newsletter most of the time.
This month has just been very busy with non-paper doll related tasks. The statewide library conference was in-person for the first time in years, so I went to that. And I have two more library related conferences I’m attending this year. Plus, I’ve been working on a side project that isn’t quite ready for prime time (soon it will be and I couldn’t be more excited). And I’ve been prepping things to become prints for the paper doll party in May. Any leftovers from the party, I plan to offer for sale on Etsy, so maybe that’ll be an interesting change of pace.
Anyway, about this paper doll set- I admit that I started on these paper dolls largely, because I wanted to work with an old Marisole Monday set- Fabulous Fairy that I’ve always had a fondness for. Originally, I had planned on drawing wings, but actually ended up running out of paper in a sketchbook and not having a back up one. Opps. I really didn’t want to deal with paper I didn’t like. So, needless to say, the wings never happened.
Influences were largely flowers and the fact that I like gardens. I’m not much of a gardener, though I keep thinking I should take it up. I rent, so I don’t really know if tearing up the yard would be okay. I do keep herbs on my porch when spring comes and I like flowers. Flowers are pretty, useful to insects, and smell nice. It’s hard to be opposed to them, really. Plus, you can eat some of them.
The other big influence over this drawing fantasy hair which I don’t get to do nearly as much as I’d like. I love complicated hairstyles. You can check out some of my influences on my fantasy section of my Hair pinterest board.
If you’re a patron, there will be a Vivian gown sometime next week (exact date depending on how life shapes up) and we’ll continue on from there.
Vivian’s Dinner Dress for March 2023
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Nordic Winter Wishes: The February Printable Paper Doll
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For those of you who have been following along in my newsletter, you’ll likely notice there’s a few extra pieces on this set (specifcally the winter coat and one pair of the shoes). I went back and forth about what to do with that coat. I’m not 100% sure it will layer over all the sweaters and I didn’t feel right giving just one of the dolls a coat (what if the other dolls get cold?). So, I thought- I’ll just keep it as a fun extra for folks when they get the whole set.
Another little detail I didn’t talk about in the newsletters was the coffee cups. I don’t know why I thought it was a fun idea to draw a mug for every paper doll with a different motif, but I did and so I drew one. To give a secret look at my process- I actually did all this layout and design work before I split it up for the newsletters. I’m very happy with how it turned out.
A few differences in these dolls and my usual stuff- I gave the dolls permanent shoes. I go back and forth on this a lot. I used to be strictly anti-attached shoes. But then I spoke with my 5 year old niece and she was deeply bothered by my paper dolls that didn’t have shoes.
So, I realized that shoes were more important than I had often thought. If you’re an attached shoes fan, you can thank her for showing me the error of my ways (though I still think I’m a bit ambivalent on the subject.) And I tend to think it depends on the paper doll- like mermaids SHOULD not have attached shoes.
That’s just silly.
Speaking of shoes- largely thanks to the shoes, there’s over 85 outfit combinations- well over 100 if you add in the scarf or the coat into the mix. So, that’s super fun!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this collection of paper dolls as much I enjoyed drawing and sharing them all with you!
Vivian’s House Dress for February 2023
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The 2022 Jewels and Gemstones Round Up!
Every year for the last few years, I’ve done a round up of all the Jewels and Gemstones Paper Dolls and I thought I would continue that tradition this year. It’s always fun to see everything! One of my goals for 2023 was to get up to 100 paper dolls in the Jewels and Gemstones series and I am so happy to say we did it!
As some of you may know from my Monday post, things are going to be looking pretty different around here for 2023. I don’t know exactly what this means for Jewels and Gemstones, yet, but I do know anything new I made for the series will be compatible. I am not resizing the series again! I promise.
Jewels and Gemstones in Historical Clothing
Over this year, I did 11 different historical dolls (one was a Patron exclusive and she’s down at the bottom in that section). I explored the 1980s, the 1950s, the Italian Renaissance and the 14th century. All fun eras! My favorite, I think, was my 1980s aerobics paper doll set.
Jewels & Gemstones in Modern Clothing
My modern paper dolls this year focused on a lot of trends like coastal grandmother and regencycore. I also did a Purim paper doll which I am super happy with. There aren’t enough purim paper dolls in this world.
Jewels & Gemstones in Fantasy & Sci-fi Costumes
My fantasy and sci-fi paper dolls are some of my favorites and based on your feedback- you’re all big fans too! My favorite fantasy paper dolls from this year I think were my regency fantasy set, my circus set and my mermaids (both Opal and Citrine got to be mermaids this year!).
Jewels and Gemstones just for my Patrons!
I debated how to share my Patron paper dolls for this year. I wanted to both show off what I’ve made for my amazing supporters and maybe entice a few of you who aren’t supporters yet to consider joining us here! As always, thank you so much to those of you who support PTP. It really does make a difference.
And that’s it folks!
The most popular post on PTP this year was Gallant Ladies! I was surprised, I confess.
Did you have a favorite? Let me know in a comment!