bonnets

A Regency Lady and Her Wardrobe

A two page printable regency paper doll with 5 dresses.

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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.

Regency Fashions: Dress, Spencer and Bonnet

A Regency era round gown from 1802 in printed cotton with a Spencer jacket and bonnet for the Jewels and Gemstones Printable paper dolls. You can print the paper doll set in color or black and white for coloring. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

Black and White PDF | Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls

Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll
I’ve been a on regency romance novel reading kick. I just finished the whole Pennyroyal Green Series which was okay. I confess that when it comes to my regency romance novels (or historical romances in general), I really only expect one out of five to be really good. Two out of five usually fail the 50 page test. (This is, for the record, where I read 50 pages and if I don’t want to continue I stop reading.)

It’s just that there are so many regency (and historical, I’m flexible on time period) romances in the world that I don’t see any reason to waste my time with ones that don’t engage me.

Anyway, since I have been enjoying this particularly fluffy genre, I remembered I had one regency dress I made a while ago that I hadn’t yet gotten around to sharing.

Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll
So, the red dress is round gown. This was a style that was popular in the every early part of the 19th century and really evolved pretty directly out of the Chemise A La Rein . A lot of round gowns have trains, but not all. Most have very high waistlines and rounded out skirts. The style sticks around until about 1810 or so when it is replaced by more structured garments. Making things a bit more confusing is the fact that the round gown can refer to 18th century styles that fastened in the front. So, this make the terminology a bit of a nightmare.

Generally, though not always, you can sort of get a sense of the era of a garment in this period by how high the waistline is. The higher the waist- the earlier the gown. But fashion trends moved a bit more slowly than they do today and, like today, a lot of people wore what they liked even if it was a year or two out of date. After all, not everyone wears skinny jeans now.

When I was picking source images for this collection, I wanted to stay before 1810, though I wasn’t super picky about year.

Specific Source Images: This 1802 English Round Gown, This Undated Spencer (it’s undated, but the very very high waist is indicative of the very early party of the 19th century), and bonnets like these from 1808.

Learn/See More
On the Blog: More Jewels & Gemstones paper dolls & More Regency paper dolls
Around the Internet: Here’s a few nice articles I found- one on the changing Regency silhouette, 18th Century Round Gowns (earlier than this one), and another nice example from The Met of the style

Last Thoughts
While I don’t really know if I have favorite periods of fashion history, I do have periods I seem to go back to more than other periods. I think part of why I like the regency era is that there were so many amazing fashion magazines of the time that make it really fun (and fairly easy) to get a good idea of what was in style.

It occurs to me that some might have missed all of the Jewels and Gemstones Regency paper dolls thus far, so here they all are. There’s also a Dinner Dress and a Morning Dress for my Patrons. If you enjoy the blog than consider becoming a patron, there’s an extra paper doll dress for my Patrons on Fridays.

The Jewels & Gemstones Regency Dress Thus Far

As usual, comments are always delightful and I’d love to hear what you think about today’s regency paper doll dress. Is there an era of fashion you really love?

Regency Fashion Week: Day Dress

A paper doll dress inspired by the regency era- it's a printed cotton dress from 1810 with a bonnet and shoes. The historical paper doll clothing is free to print and play with.

Black and White PDF | Color PDF | More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls

Thoughts on Today’s Paper Doll
There’s a perception that the Regency era was all white dresses, white stockings and white shoes. Never mind the fact that there is still mud in the 1800s and there’s not the kind of laundry capacity we have now. I knew I wanted to do a richly colored day dress in patterned cotton.

Day dresses were a form of undress or half-dress (as I mentioned yesterday). This dress is a more middle class style and certainly casual. Printed cottons were very popular in the era and this color is called Turkey red. The “turkey” part of the name refers to the country of Turkey, not the bird.

Her bonnet is a bit earlier than the dress- it’s a soft sort of style that was super popular before 1810 and then seems to fall out of fashion a bit for harder stiffer styles. I have one of those bonnets for tomorrow.

Inspiration for Today’s Paper Doll
The dress’s silouhette comes from this gown from the V&A Museum. The print on the dress and the colors are from this swatch from Ackermann’s Journal. That was a fashion journal that included pasted in fabric/paper swatches.

Specific Source Images: These stockings, these shoes, this dress, this bonnet (bottom left) and this fabric.

Learn/See More
On the Blog: More Regency Fashion Paper Dolls and More Jewels & Gemstones Paper Dolls
Around the Internet: Turkey Red from Wikipedia and Another Nice Regency Dress Overview

Last Thoughts
One of the challenges though of working in historical clothing is that I don’t know what would be considered “tacky”. Would it be tacky to combine blue stockings with green shoes and a red dress? Is this too much color? How would a woman of this period actually feel about this combination? I have no idea.

I just noticed there’s a tiny coloring error in this set. How embarrassing! I’ll get it fixed when I can. Probably not this week though (this week is a bit crazy).

I’m not planning to do a mourning dress, but how cool are these mourning dress fashion plates? I always think of the obsession with mourning clothing being a Victorian thing, but here’s the early stages.

So, what do you think of today’s dress? Love it? Hate it? Wish it was white? Let me know in a comment.

In the Mid-1860s… Civil War Era Paper DOlls in Color

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Here we are today with the colored version of last Monday’s post. Color for historical garments is complicated, because colors are very much a matter of taste and a matter of time. Just as the avocado and burnt orange polyester shirts of the 1970’s seem dated to us today, the colors of the past are rarely how we imagine them to be. I always picture the Victorians in tones of sepia, not because that was what they wore, but because I always see sepia photographs. I once had a professor point out that the way we picture the past has little to do with how the past actually was, but I enjoy my fantasies of the past as much as the next person.

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For this set of paper dolls, I chose to use colors from reproduction quilting cottons as a basis for the garment. They turned out to be a little muddier than perhaps I would have chosen on my own, but I wanted something different than the oranges, blue, pink, and green combination of colors I find myself most often drawn too. The ballgown in pink and black is based on the fashion plate which I drew it from, though I made a slightly darker version of the original.

color-1860s-ballgown

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I’ll confess openly that I’m not entirely pleased with how some of these came out in color. I went muted and I think that was the right call, but I’m not sure that I didn’t lose some of the lusciousness and the vibrancy of the era. They also came out less romantic than I had hoped they would be. I do think Margot is awfully cute with her freckles and red hair (yes, I do have a weird thing for redheads). In truth, I am pleased with both the dolls. I think Marisole is a warm brown this time and I like how Margot came out. All in all, though I had some second thoughts about drawing a new face for Marisole, I am pleased with Margot and I think she’ll show up a bit more around the blog.

On an unrelated note, child paper dolls have pulled into the lead in the polling… a fact which I am very much surprised by.

Fashion Doll Friday: Flora’s Spencer and Day Dress

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The spenser is based on a fashion plate from 1819. The dress is based on a different fashion plate from 1811. I totally loved the sleeves and knew I wanted to draw it. The bonnet needs to have the back piece pasted on around the edges so that it can slip over the dolls head.

For another sort of paper fashions, check out Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave, a show organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco featuring fantastic costumes made from paper. The word “astonishing” comes to mind when describing them.

Fashion Doll Friday: Flora’s Promenade & Day or Walking Dress

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Usually, I try to save my notes as to where I get my fashion plates that evolve into paper dolls, but I forgot this time, I’m afraid. The dress on the left is a promenade costume and the dress on the right is a day or walking dress. I am realizing I haven’t yet drawn gloves for Flora and I should. When short sleeves were standard, the need for gloves was pretty serious. England is not, after all, the warmest country.

So, I’ve got up a new poll, again, largely for my own amusement more then anything else. It’s a question I have always wondered about and now I get to know the answer.

Fashion Doll Friday: Flora’s Spencer Jacket and Walking Costume

This has been a busy week here among the corn. I’ve been working and schooling. I got to listen in on a fascinating lecture about the history of bibles (not the text, but the printing history of the book) and that was amazing. And, of course, I’ve been working on homework and other things while work is very busy. It’s been fun, but hectic.

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series} {Click Here for the Doll to Dress}

Neither of these costumes for Flora were based on specific fashion plate. I felt like she needed a spencer jacket (the short jacket) which is such a well known early 19th century garment. It was named for George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer. The story goes he burned the tails off his coat while warming himself by the fire and just decided to cut them off. It seems doubtful this actually happened, but it’s a neat story. Jane Austen’s World blog had somebeautiful photos of spencer jackets. I confess to actually not being a big fan of Austen, but people keep telling me I should reread her novels. I keep telling them I have other things I’d rather read. This is a hard case to make to my good friend who wrote her Master’s thesis on Jane Austen.

Regency Romance: A Historical Paper Doll

Technically, I realize this is late, but here’s the thing. It is still Monday on the West coast which is kinda like it being Monday in the Mid-west. I’m sure there’s a hole in my argument, but I am ignoring it and distracting with a pretty pretty printable paper doll.

marisole-regency-150

{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

Actually with quite a few printable paper dolls, I had set up a whole series of posts to post while I was in class this last week, except none of them actually did post. This made me sad and I was too busy to spend time fixing it, so over the next few days things will be popping up from the last week which should have gone up previously. Just keep your eyes open for them.

I haven’t been paying as much attention to the blog as I should, but I will start doing so over the next few days. There shall be lovely paper dolls and strange ramblings by me about life, the universe and paper dolls. Paper dolls being the most important factor.

Regency Teddy Bear: Printable Paper Doll Coloring Page

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Page Two of the Regency Teddy Bear Paper Doll}

Yay. It’s a first post and it is a Regency fashion teddy bear paper doll- because everyone needs a teddy bear with Empire era dresses, right? I mean that’s totally normal. (Don’t judge me!)

So, I am very excited to reveal here the mostly finished new version of Paper Thin Personas. Yes, I lost everything, but now is a time for rebuilding and creating new things. (This is me trying to be positive.) There’s still some work to be done and it’s not perfect yet, but it is on it’s way. I’m excited.

(No one else might be, but I totally am.)

So, enjoy the Regency Teddy Bear paper doll.

A more coherent post may come on Monday, but no promises.

Edit: I’ve posted the second page of this paper doll. You can get the teddy bear’s other clothes here.