I’m going to be making my bf a mid 18th century outfit and while I start the mockups for the patterns (J.P. Ryan), I was wondering what the general rule was the fiber combinations? Like for ladies if you have a silk jacket or robe you should have a silk skirt. But cotton/linen jackets n robes can have any kind of skirt; silk, cotton, or linen.
Sorry for taking so long to answer!
I should preface this by saying the context in which clothes were worn and what was worn for what is something I haven’t done a lot of research on, but here’s my general impression of this whole “rules” thing.
So, the thing about these “rules” is that they tend to be made up by modern costumers/reenactors based on what was (or what we think was) most common, but it doesn’t mean that it was always the case. Unless you’re talking about situations for which there are actual documented rules or guidelines (like court dress, or mourning in the later 19th century), then it doesn’t really make sense to impose strict rules about what fibres to wear with what. Heck, even when there were sumptuary laws about certain things people loved blatantly disregarding them!
I’ve never heard about that silk jacket one, and while I haven’t got time to look for contradictory primary evidence right now I guarantee there’s some out there. If you’re a rather poor 18th century lady and you find a decently affordable old silk jacket at a used clothes market, are you going to pass it up because you don’t have any silk skirts? I think not! People would have dressed themselves in what they could afford & what they felt was most appropriate.
Years ago I read a blog post (on At The Sign Of The Golden Scissors, whose entire blog archive sadly seems to have vanished) and it talked about some “rule” that said you should only wear a striped petticoat if your gown or jacket was also striped, and the post included several 18th century newspaper descriptions of people who were wearing plain gowns with striped petticoats.
There is a very similar post on the American Duchess blog that explains the same thing quite well. A couple of good quotes from it:
“she told me that trained curators, historians, and researchers know that their field of study is constantly changing and it’s simply inappropriate and irresponsible to make definitive statements. New information is uncovered regularly, changing our knowledge and understanding of the past.”
“When a statement like “solid coloured cotton dresses did not exist in the 19th century” is made, I must counter with, “but have you examined every 19th century gown surviving in every collection in the world? Have you read every magazine, seen every fashion plate and their descriptions, read every letter surviving from that time period?“”
So, I guess.. look at portraits and read fashion plate captions and stuff for inspiration and decide what fabric combination is most suitable for your needs. Suits made entirely of wool or of silk are very common, and you see a lot of wool coats worn with wool or silk breeches and silk waistcoats, but there are many other options and I’m not at all prepared to say anything definitive about it.
