Just a quick update with a book review. This compilation from Stella Blum is one of the nicest (and cheapest) resources available for black and white fashion designs from the 19th century. It's available at Amazon with a new cover. The version I posted at right is the one I actually have (an earlier edition). I use this book a lot to get ideas and have learned a lot about the construction of these clothes (especially all of those complicated folds and tucks!) from studying the pictures.
The original source of this material, was Harper's Bazar, a large-format fashion magazine that began publication in 1867. Harper's Bazar included fashion patterns for ladies to make their own clothes. You can usually see copies of the magazine for sale on eBay and the like. They are not very cheap to purchase individually, which makes this compilation quite nice, even if it only shows a representative portion of fashions compared to the original source. The original magazine was densely illustrated and showed a great deal of detail, not only on the clothes, but patterns for embroidery, lace, and other trims as well ~ along with accessories (hats, gloves, shoes, etc.).
Theodore Menton and Tom Tierney both created a lovely paper doll sets based on these magainzes, both of which I will blog about later (with pictures of course!).
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