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Pop Culture & Paper Dolls
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I am combining my various blogs into one big site that can accommodate everything and will make it easier to update and share. Some of the content here will be ported over there in some form. In the meantime, this blog will remain an archive for the foreseeable future.

I couldn't let the whole month of May get away from me without posting something! Unfortunately I have been absorbed with other things these last four weeks and haven't had time or energy to focus on my poor blogs, but I am going to return for the summer and hopefully won't be going away again any time soon.

Today you have two blue and gold studies from the 1870s. crinolines were out and bustles were in. By the mid-70s the bustles were starting to grow toward the outrageous proportions they reached in the early 1880s. But for the moment the silhouette was still pretty thin compared to the wide bell skirts of the 60s.

Above is a plate from La Mode Illustree, 1976.  The little girl's fur-trimmed coat seems to indicate that it's still winter. The blue dress appears to be a visiting gown, while the gold looks like a dinner gown (definitely afternoon wear).

The one below is from 1975, but I don't know the journal in which it originally appeared. The two dresses are walking dresses highlighting two different styles of sleeves and bustles. Everything was flouncy and ruchey in this decade (layers upon layers!). Also note the buttoned pockets on both dresses. The veils on the hats were partly meant to keep the dust out of one's coiffure since ladies often set their hair for the day and tried not to muss it.

I have no idea what a big horn on one's head has to do with St. Emile, but there you have it. And don't think for a moment I didn't nearly pass on that one because of all that fussy little detail in the dress patterns. But it just looked so cool in Chasemore's drawing I couldn't resist the challenge.

The May costume is some kinda artist-artsy thing (Chasemore had a thing for women wearing palettes on their heads ~ Volume No. 26 had one too!). I liked the iris she was holding (flowers are also something I need to challenge myself with).

And just like that we're down to one remaining plate for this volume (wow they went quick). Guess I really better get cracking on whatever it is that's going to come next (ulp!).

You don't see much about the 1840s online. Nothing about the decade really stands out fashion-wise. The chief characteristic was probably the onset of the all-encompassing bonnet and the rise of the layered bell skirt (crinolines would come later). The slopey neck was in and hairstyles were tight, oiled, and contained (a big swing from the 30s when everything was curled, frizzed, and piled high). Even the colors of the 40s seemed to have been rather dour and Puritan. Bad decade for men's pants too: balloony and wasp-waisted with stirrups and tightly fitted jackets (corsets for men were still widely in vogue in this era). 

So here's a plate to commemorate sch fun times! This was probably originally printed in Graham's, but I'm not 100% certain.

These were both super-fun to draw! Sometimes Chasemore's costumes can be a little weird or challenging, but other times they're a joy to behold and even more fun to render. I feel like the Carnival costume needs a domino mask, though. The one with the sunflowers came with a great big afro of a hairdo, which I really didn't think I could do justice (the original image was in profile so it kind of worked ~ I'm afraid my poor doll would just end up looking like a giant hair explosion).

Still no closer to deciding on a project once Judy is finished posting for this volume (I have two more plates in the works). Fortunately I have a few more bits and bobs "from the vaults" as it were. Ought to keep us into May at least.

Today some small, but lovely 1867 plates from a journal called Pariser Moden, which I had not seen before (one more thing to search while out prowling for source material!). I especially love these (as some of you may guess) because they show ladies and gentlemen rather than only the ladies. 19th century women certainly wanted their men to look good and oversaw at least some aspects of their dress (and certainly in the lower classes made all their husband's and sons' clothes). So knowing what a fashionable man should look like in the ideal was important.  Click to see a little more detail. Unfortunately the scans were pretty small. I found them on a fabulous French website here.

I promised some wacky stuff in this volume and here we've got two hats and a nonsensical striped nightmare of a dress (have no idea what it has to do with St. Polycarp; again, the joke is lost on me ~ and possibly to the ages).

I confess that I am beginning to miss seeing color on this blog, so hopefully there will be a new painted paper doll in the near-future. I love black & white because I can produce material very quickly and can post full plates right away instead of endlessly teasing stuff in process. But I really have been away from painting for a really long time now and I do miss it.

Judy Vol. 30 has a total of 6 plates, so there's still three more to go!

It's always fun to find a new website, online collection, or blog with cool pictures and wonderful articles to get you inspired. The Victoria & Albert Museum: 19th Century Fashion site just hits the spot!

Great articles, gorgeous pictures of clothing from the collection, and some pretty nifty interactive features where you can get 360-degree views. The images on the 360 views aren't quite as large or sharp as one might hope, but still very cool to be able to turn a dress around and see it from all sides.

The dress above is a 1878-1880 Jacquard silk dress with ruching and lace (designer unknown). To see more sumptuous photos of other glories from the age of Victoria, check out the site!

Volume 30 of the Judy serial has some very strange things in it, but out of about twenty costumes to choose from I've selected a balance so that these aren't too weird! I try to pick things that either catch my fancy (like the foresty looking dress above), or things that challenge my ability to reproduce patterns and textures.

Chasemore, the original artist, clearly had not only a vivid imagination, but an absolute gift for rendering. I can't do all of his designs justice, but it's fun to see what I manage.

All of the the outfits in this series have a curly fringe hairstyle. I probably should have just given that hairstyle to the base doll, but it actually makes the headgear easier for me to manage. I drew a complete set of 10 extra outfits for this doll over the weekend, so there are four more plates to follow.

One hundred and thirty-seven years ago, this is what ladies were ogling in the fashion mags (in this case, The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine). I especially love the colors on the blue dress (I'd look pretty good in that). The silhouettes were changing dramatically at this time as the hoops were out and the bustles were on their way in. One of the more flattering styles of the last half of that century, I think, though those skirts could be pretty tight!