[dressingdifferently]

Pinned

I'm making this blog to both organize resources I've found on this topic and my own thoughts about how we might change how we dress in a way to create more pleasure (and perhaps even ease) for the person getting dressed without wasting human labor on inefficient practices.

I will clarify that I am not a historian and especially not a fashion historian. I don't have the expertise to properly assess the reliability of the historical sources I share. However, I'm not concerned about that as my goal here is largely to expand my own personal imagination in terms of how dressing can work. Sharing something here is not a full-throated endorsement of either the resource itself, its creator, or the views expressed within.

As a note, I will be tagging posts that center on historical resources with #male and #female if they focus exclusively on one or the other, as is common with the format of "getting dressed in [time/place] as [person]" videos. I will not use this tagging for any modern examples of garments. I would take a moment to state that I use these terms as adjectives to describe men and women and things either associated with/enforced for either gender. Trans women are women, trans men are men, nonbinary people are nonbinary. The way I label these resources is not intended as an endorsement of sexgender binary or sexgender essentialism. In my imagined ideal future, there are not any gendered rules about clothing.

Credits:

Header image is from user firkin here, modified from this image on wikimedia commons I believe.

Icon is from wikimedia commons here

[ashlgcostumes]

Truly I hate to do this to you all but; you can watch all the videos and read all the blogs in the world but you cannot learn to sew without at some point picking up a piece of fabric and fucking it up. No tutorial exists that will stop you at some point ruining this poor piece of cloth. The visceral act of holding a project and wondering where you went wrong is the only way to learn sewing; you cannot escape it. I’m sorry

[sevilemar]

This is getting ridiculous. I have just spend at least half an hour looking down in awe at the marvellous swoosh swoosh, and because I cannot contain it any longer, you get a shitty picture of what's making me so happy right now:

Yes, this is my mock-up skirt, the very first skirt I've ever made, and I love it so much. It's made of old bed sheets and old, abandoned clothes I rescued, washed, ripped, and sewed on as ruffles.

It was supposed to be a mock-up of the split side skirt, so I could learn the techniques before I use it on the expensive fabrics, and it wasn't supposed to have ruffles. When I had finished making the upper part, though, it was kinda short, and I looked at my pile of ripped old clothes, and thought 'Why not. If nothing else, I'll at least learn how to do ruffles.'

First thing I learned about ruffles is that it's a lot of fabric. And I mean a lot. This full circle skirt now has the accumulated fabric (and weight) of three shirts, a big pillowcase, and the remnants of another bedsheet.

Second thing I learned about ruffles is that they're easier to make than you would think. Third thing I learned about ruffles is that I love them.

And consequently, I wore the first incarnation of this skirt around the house even before I hemmed it. The bedsheets were bright yellow and baby blue, the clothes were white, and grey, and black, and generally pretty washed out. The colours looked awful, but I loved the cut and the swoosh.

Today, I was in town, and I saw a dye kit in what they called dark berry red, and I thought it might be fun to try. And oh boy, I was not prepared. You probably cannot see it in the picture, but this skirt is now so many different shades of dark brown, dark red, and purple, it's awesome!

The different patches look like a design choice now, instead of the 'take what you have and make it work' that it was, and I'm completely thrown with how it looks, and with how well it goes with the shirt I'm wearing. I cannot stop smiling, and touching, and swooshing^^

If fashion was like this all the time, I would love it so much!

[redstonedust]

pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.

[bincliff]

hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!

so, ways to get around this:

turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us

don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace

a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)

instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian

including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too

including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue

for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend

when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!

if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache

some online resources and museum collections:

fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples

the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates

costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)

v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece

lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces

nypl digital collection for photographs

national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art

national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific

stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource

wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain

auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!

anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)

[haemey]

Wikipedia has a list of fashion museums. Unfortunately, the page itself is only available in German, but the introductory paragraph is very short and after that, it's organised by country, and then it's a simple list. If you click on a museum's article, the website is usually linked in the overview table.

[intheheatherbright]

Costume. Chitons.

[intheheatherbright]

Marjorie & C. H. B.Quennell, Everyday Things in Archaic Greece (London: B. T. Batsford, 1931).

[killerchickadee]

Wait, wait…. Is that seriously it? How their clothes go?

[treewizarded]

that genuinely is it

[itwashotwestayedinthewater]

yeah hey whats up bout to put some fucking giant sheets on my body

[sourcefieldmix-deactivated20161]

lets bring back sheetwares

[hostagesandsnacks]

also chlamys:

and exomis:

[hidingthemane-deactivated201801]

trust the ancients to make a fashion statement out of straight cloth and nothing but pins

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

Wrap Yourself In Blankets, Call It a Day

[awhiffofcavendish]

Wear blanket. Conquer world.

[goys2men]

That last one looks dope

[moniquill]

Squares and rectangles: easy to weave!! No cutting means no hemming.

[hc-svnt-dracones]

And easy to construct, you don’t have to have complicated seaming and patterning to turn fabric into clothing!

[pendragyn]

ancient Egyptian robes

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

This sort of clothing solution wasn’t just for the Mediterranean, or northern Africa, either. Behold the Belted Plaid:

(auto generated captions)

[marlynnofmany]

Has anyone already reblogged this with saris? It’s cool how many cultures have similarities like this hidden in plain sight.

[tieras]

https://kalaavarsha.com/how-to-wear-or-drape-a-saree/

[deliciouswastelandgoddess]

The lungi is a traditional garment worn in many southern states of India. It's different from the dhoti, in that it is a tubular shape (like

Since we are here might as well share the dhoti and the lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Pancha-Kachcham?amp=1

It’s only men in the photos but really anyone can wear them. I am wearing a lungi right now.

I also know Thailand and Sri Lanka have their versions of a lungi as well.

[dressingdifferently]

The Split-Side Adjustable Waist Giant Pockets Skirt

I was introduced to this by the youtube channel, The Stitchery. In fact, if I had to credit any single thing with my interest in taking historical inspiration for how we should dress in the future, it would be this video.

The Quiet History of Adjustable Clothing [from a non-historian]

This video begins by talking about the Coquelicot Skirt by Wildflower Designs, the sewing pattern that brought both the general idea (petticoat style adjustable waistbands) and several modern additions (like the integrated pockets and the lace-up design) into the spotlight a few years ago.

[A model showing the ties for a view A sewn coquelicot skirt in wool suiting, taken from the pattern page]

The rest of the video goes through an amateur exploration of historical and traditional adjustable clothing, with a special focus on lower body garments that are tied on.

The Stitchery then followed that with two tutorial-ish explorations of all the various design decisions you can make in skirts that share the adjustable waist and the large, sturdy pockets.

The first part is here, which also acts as a really good exploration of many of the design aspects of skirts in general. The second part is here.

Less DIY Options

But those tutorial-ish guide videos lead you through drafting the pattern yourself, essentially. It's a lot of work.

If you're looking for a pre-made modern sewing pattern with these ties for a modern skirt, it's basically just the one I linked to above. However, there are a lot of sew-alongs for this specific pattern available, and the Wildflower Design blog has a few blog posts featuring FAQs, modifications, and hacks of the original pattern.

You could look back into the Butterick 5261a which was a major inspiration for the coquelicot, but it's a vintage commercial pattern. Hard to find and probably expects a lot of pre-existing knowledge. But there are listings for it, like this one, at times.

But if you don't want to sew... this seems like it would be a great skirt to buy from someone else. As long as the skirt is designed to be rather full, you only need to make sure that the waistband is vaguely the correct size.

The unfortunate thing is that there really isn't a single name people are using for the two-panel-separately-secured design feature that's so special about this skirt.

But I'll share what I've found.

This etsy shop, CaitsHandmadeClothes, seems to have several listings, like this one for a miniskirt version of a split side skirt, and this one for a midi.

[Two images showing listed skirts from CaitsHandmadeClothes. The left one is a mini skirt, seemingly without pockets, in a lighter autumnal patterned fabric. The right is a darker midi skirt with pockets. Both are positions to show off the adjustable fastenings]

I did also previously find an independent storefront which was selling the same type of adjustable clothing, based in Canada. It had its own website and sold a few different garments that were intended to be sturdy, long-lasting, and adjustable. However. I have misplaced that resource, and I know it did not use any of the obvious terms associated with this style of skirt. So I'm going to have to look through YouTube comments because I know that's where I found it initially. I'll update this post when I find it.

[dressingdifferently]

Now we can look at our modern clothing system, at least what I see available here in the US.

We have a system where clothing is made for the mass market, rather than custom commissioned, in assembly line conditions. So far, there's nothing necessarily wrong with this. Assembly lines can create significant efficiencies of labor. However, the working conditions (safety, hours, pay, etc) are all terrible. Independent of that, there are other problems with the clothing being made. Even if I could wave a magic wand and immediately fix all the labor issues with how clothes are made, we would still have work to do.

The clothing is made to be, generally, highly curved (high wastage) and generally very fitted. Even in garments that have significant ease, there are often still measurements that need to be within narrow ranges for it to fit the wearer. It's made for mass markets, so it's made in specific "sizes" that correlate something like a dozen different measurements of the human body. It is wildly unlikely that most people will find garments that correctly match their own body in all of those measurements.

The common refrain to this problem is that you just go get your garments tailored. This is ridiculous.

Firstly, these garments are not made to be tailored. They aren't sewn with the seam allowance that garments intended to be tailored later would be. Consider: new wedding dresses. They are usually sold with unusually large seam allowances in order to allow for them to be let out. That is what a garment intended for later tailoring looks like, and it's a perfectly fine solution for a garment like a wedding dress. (That is: a garment intended for one special occasion rather than regular wear on a changing body.) And this extra seam allowance isn't added in most garments, partially just to save fabric, yes, but also because it adds bulk in a finished garment. If it's not going to be tailored, that makes it less suitable for most people who have no intention of getting their purchases altered.

Secondly, tailoring is a lot of human work. Full tailoring is also expensive, naturally, due to this. Frankly, it's logistically impractical to imagine that it would be affordable for all garments that people practically wear. Especially given that people's sizes change over their lives; garments would either need to be replaced with newly tailored garments semi-often, or the same garments would later need the same tailoring to occur again. Simple tasks like hemming or letting out hems might be quite simple and affordable, but the current design of clothing would potentially necessitate entire rebuilds of the garment for many common types of clothing to fully tailor them to properly fit, especially for people whose shapes vary more from the "standard" shapes designed for. Even if we assume a magical perfect communist future of whatever flavor you like, it would still be ridiculous for full tailoring of every garment to be the standard.

But. Making things fit "properly" only requires that much work due to the specific way we dress.

If we were willing to accept some other tradeoffs, could we have standard sizes that practically worked better for people? What trade offs? What designs?

The current system is built on horrific injustice and cruelty. It's not actually sustainable or workable without those things. We have to minimize the work per garment if we're going to dress justly. How can we do it in a way that's workable and reasonable within our modern expectations?

[dressingdifferently]

With only a few examples, we can see a number of things to consider, and how they relate to eachother.

Fabric Wastage: Clothing that is mostly sewn with rectangles and triangles can be designed to minimize wasted fabric. You see the same idea with "zero waste" sewing patterns today. On the other hand, curved pieces almost certainly causes increased fabric wastage. (There are probably some modern exceptions, but those would all require very weird finagling to make their patterns work)

Fit and Shaping: How closely does the garment actually sit on the body when worn? Even if there is significant ease, does the garment shape itself follow the curves of the body?

Tailoring vs Adjustability: If something does fit rather closely, is it tailored to a specific set of measurements? Or is it adjustable somehow?

Ease of Dressing: How much work does it take to get dressed? Can an abled adult manage without assistance? What level of disability would mean that they require assistance?

Freedom of movement vs excess fabric: How easy is it to move around in this garment? Is there a lot of fabric at risk of getting in the way or getting caught in something?

A few considerations haven't really been directly touched on by the videos themselves, but they come to mind for me anyways.

Work to create: How much skill is required to design or construct this garment? A pleated apron can probably be sewn by anyone who knows how to use a needle and scissors but stays are certainly built by specialists. In addition, how much labor is necessary to create these things. Can assembly line processes make this garment in a way suitable for the expected wear?

Work to maintain: How often does it need laundered? Do I need to keep it safe from moths? Is it prone to rips in seams that need to be repaired? If it's possible to adjust the fit somehow, does that require me to sew something or just do up the laces differently? How much sewing do I have to do to adjust it? In modern times, can it withstand being thrown into the washing machine? The dryer? In historical situations, would it require having pleats re-ironed into the garments? Do I need to carefully protect the embroidered parts of the garment to avoid damage? Do I need to re-dye the clothing every other time I wash it?

Longevity of the garment: Is there something limiting the longevity of the garment moreso than just the durability of the fabric itself? If the fabric itself tears or wears thin in one part, can I patch it? Can I patch it without looking poor or cheap? How long will the fabric itself hold up, given the way I'm maintaining it?

These all relate to each other, of course. A custom tailored close-fitted garment necessarily requires significant wastage due to the curves in the pieces, as well as significant labor that can't really be reduced by the efficiencies you get with assembly line construction. Even with the benefits of stretch knit fabrics with elastane in them, this remains true for things to be properly fitted.

And if we want to make clothing last longer, perhaps we can launder it less. How can we launder something less? Well, the smock/shift underlayers that protect clothing from skin oils can be very helpful there. But needing an extra layer of undergarment adds difficulty and time to getting dressed.

[dressingdifferently]

Getting dressed in the 18th century - working woman

Another video from CrowsEyeProductions, this time showing a working woman from England in the 1700s getting dressed.

I am far more interested in how normal working people dressed for regular occasions than I am in nobility or special events like weddings.

Further discussion about the garments shown in the video below the cut:

Undergarment layer

Unlike in the last post, we see undergarments getting more complex here.

We start with a linen shift, very similar to the smock from the 1300s. And similarly, there were not drawers worn beneath skirts at this time.

Above this, you have the stays. This garment is referred to as a pair of stays or a pair of bodies. The video shows the straps of the stays as being sewn more securely to the back side, while the front side it held in place with a piece of ribbon looped through carefully reinforced eyelets. This seems like it's to keep the strap length adjustable and fitting exactly to the person wearing it.

The stays shown in the video have laces in both the front and the back. The back laces could be kept pre-tied while the front laces were what was actually adjusted when putting them on for the day.

To cover the gap where the stays lace together in the front, there's a stomacher. The stomacher fits beneath the stays and is held in place by how tightly they are laced. This would potentially allow the wearer to remove clothing during the day (for heat, work, etc) without exposing that shift undergarment, preserving modesty.

The stays functioned as a supportive garment, preventing the bust from moving as well as providing modesty. Note the shape of it on a person. There are those little flaps on the side that flare out a little, and end the part of the garment that squeezes. The point of the body where that squeezing ends is right at the natural waist, not that far below the bust. This differs from later corsets.

Feet

Notably, stockings and shoes would actually need to be put on before stays, as stays made it difficult to bend and access the feet.

But stockings would now have been knit, which allowed them to stretch around the contours of the foot and calf much more easily. However, without modern elastic or double sided tape, they still used simple tied garters below the knee to keep them upright.

Shoes are merely described as low and practical. More detail is lacking.

Pockets/Belt layer

Much like in the 1300s video, pockets are their own item worn at the waist. The video shows one with a built in belt/strap that is tied around the waist, however, I believe at this time separate belts and pockets worn on those belts were also common. These pockets would have been accessed through slits in the sides of the skirt layers, and whether the belt was separate or integrated, the belt was also often used to attach tools.

The pocket is tied at the same level as the natural waist I mentioned before, where the side flap things are. While the model doesn't seem to do it in this video, I have seen other historical dressing videos where pockets ties are woven between those flaps, suggesting they exist not just to modify the shaping but also to be a point of fixture to help make things tied around the waist more stable.

"Skirt" layers

All skirt layers shown in the video are affixed with the same "petticoat" style ties. That is, the garments have long splits at the sides and long ties such that you tie on the front panel first, then the back panel, tucking the knots and ties beneath the bands of the skirts themselves.

The gaps in the sides would allow access to the pockets or any other tools tied to the waist. The garments would have been shaped with pleating/gathers in the waistband, but probably cut as simple rectangles. The skirts would all end around the ankle, letting you move freely without picking up the skirt. Longer skirts would require you to lift your skirt any time you took the stairs, to avoid tripping, as well as risking being dragged on the ground.

The video shows a single under petticoat and a single over-petticoat. The undergarment is simpler and used for shaping, warmth, and modesty (given the lack of drawers). More petticoats, or thicker quilted ones, might have been worn when it was colder.

The over petticoat is designed to be seen as the over layer. You would expect it to be dyed, potentially embroidered, and likely kept in better condition.

There's also the additional over layer of the apron, worn above this and constructed like the front half of a petticoat.

Torso and Arms

A kerchief is used here to cover the neck, shoulders, and low neckline. This can be for modesty, but also for protection from the elements or sun. The example in this video shows it tucked into the stays, which was common. I've seen from other sources that around this time, kerchiefs were often chosen in pretty patterns and colors as a fashionable thing, being a small amount of fabric with a significant visual impact and not needing any sort of careful sizing/etc.

A jacket/short gown is shown over stays, kerchief, and petticoats (but below the apron). This garment looks like a jacket that lacks any buttons or zippers. It's instead fixed in place via straight pins. These pins allow the jacket to overlap the amount it needs to, making it adjustable without even needing to move the locations of buttons. The straight pins are pointed into the solidly built stays, keeping the points safely away from your person, and holding the jacket very securely in place.

Jacket sleeves only reached below the elbow, keeping them safely out of the way for working, ensuring you didn't need to roll your sleeves up.

Hair/Head

Women at this time would usually wear their hair fixed up beneath a white linen cap, to protect the hair. Pretty ribbons to hold this cap in place were another of the easy/cheaper/high-impact ways to add beauty to your clothing and express yourself, much like the kerchief.

Outdoor Wear

The video shows long fingerless knitted gloves (the fingers are not separated, to be clear). These would go all the way up to meet or near meet the short sleeves of the jacket/short gown.

Hooded cloaks, also called riding hoods, were the expected and normal outdoor wear for all women at the time. And bright red ones were very fashionable for the later half of the 18th century, so yes, this is the garment from little red riding hood.

[dressingdifferently]

Getting dressed in the 14th century

This is the first video I'm covering from the CrowsEyeProductions youtube channel. They have a full playlist of these "getting dressed" videos here. Note, however, that they are not the only people who make videos of a very similar format, and my #getting dressed tag does not refer to them specifically.

This video shows two people getting dressed in England. First, someone dressing either more poorly or in ways more associated with 1300-1340, and then someone getting dressed with more "extravagant" clothing more seen in the second half of the century.

Further discussion about the garments shown in the video below the cut:

All fabrics at this time would have been exclusively woven, as knitting is believed to have been first invented in the next century.

First person (maid) getting dressed

Undergarment layer

Linen smock. No other underdrawers.

Main body garments

A simple kirtle, one cut solely with squares/rectangles/triangles to reduce wastage, and thus with a rather simple/not-full skirt. No curved shaping for this one, all shaping would have been accomplished via cinching with belts, folds/gathers, or pleating. The video shows only one but notes that more might be worn for warmth. These were simply pulled over the head, not needing any lacing or ties.

A belt, worn above the kirtle(s) and below the next overlayers. The belt would cinch them into shape and be a place to attach separate pockets/purses, as well as various tools.

A sideless surcoat/overtunic is shown over the belt layer. It has no sleeves and has side openings that allow access to the tools/pockets beneath it, without showing them. Similar to the first kirtles, these were simply pulled above the head without any need for fixtures or lacing.

Above this, there's an apron, a practical protective garment that covers the "skirt" of the surcoat and is tied behind the back.

Feet

Hose/stockings, cut on the bias to create a slight stretch in the absence of knitting. These were held up with simple garters tied below the knee.

The video simply describes the shoes as being made of leather and tied with laces, not lingering on them or their construction.

Hair/head

Hair was plaited often with linen tape, then looped/coiled close to the head and secured with a "fillet" of linen and tied at the back of the head. A linen kerchief was worn over this and pinned to the kerchief to keep it secure.

Second person (lady) getting dressed

The video then shows the maid from the first section assisting a lady with getting dressed in clothing more associated with luxury and the later 1300s.

Main body garments

The lady's kirtles were cut with curved, fitted seams. The skirts became more full, curving out. According to the narration, these garments fit better and allowed more easy freedom of movement, but thus required fastening (lacing, buttons) to put them on, potentially necessitating assistance in getting dressed. The use of curving fitted seams results in more wastage of fabric, part of what makes these garments read as more luxurious and expensive.

Belts were still used to hold tools/purses/pockets but no longer necessary to control the shape of a fitted kirtle.

This sideless surcoat also got more shaped with curving lines and so on, but doesn't seem to require the lacing/buttons necessary for the fitted kirtles, as they are still sideless and sleeveless.

Feet

Stockings are basically the same, as knitting is still absent. However, the shoes we see here have buckles and decorative slashes/holes in the uppers. The narration doesn't explain the method of construction for these shoes.

Hair/head

Hair is plaited and pinned with the same type of fillet as for the maid. However, instead of a kerchief worn over this, she wears a wimple, which is more covering and keeps the neck covered, where the kerchief seemed to mainly just protect the hair.