Yellow Satin Jacket and Petticoat Metropolitan Museum of Art

Asynchronous (Adjective: Not coinciding in fourth dimension)

Eighteenth-Century Clothes for a Twenty-Start-Century Pose

Brooke Barrows models a long-sleeved neoclassical white-linen chemise of the late eighteenth century with a pink-and-gold striped sash, all constructed by Colonial Williamsburg'southward Millinery Shop, where she is an apprentice.

Editor'south note: The journal took an offbeat proposition to Colonial Williamsburg photographer Tom Green and producer Abigail Schumann: How about a show of eighteenth-century fashions shot in the 20-kickoff-century way of, say, Faddy, or Glamour, or the New York Times Magazine? From headgear to footwear the clothes would be 1700s high-style authentic, simply the poses would put them and the models in a decidedly 2000s context. The magazine's careful attention to historical verisimilitude would, this once, take a back seat to an ersatz haute couture. The we-don't-e'er-take-to-take-ourselves-so-seriously thought was to experiment, to accept a fleck of fun, to push the envelope, and maybe to raise an eyebrow or two. Collaborating with Brenda Rosseau, director of Colonial Williamsburg's design center, freelance make-upward creative person Sharon Barrett of Richmond, and Tom Hammond, supervisor of costume inquiry and blueprint, Green and Schumann produced the results, from gracious to Goth—no messages, please, nearly the Goth—that appear in these pages. Below, Rosseau and Linda Baumgarten, curator of costumes and textiles, provide historical groundwork for the outfits.

In the eighteenth century, "dressing upwardly" meant displaying luxurious textiles trimmed with the finest handmade flourishes. Manual laborers had to wear clothes that were practical, comfortable, and relatively inexpensive, but people with social standing and money could clothes very well, indeed. Society expected as much.

The gentleman'southward three-piece adjust was a waistcoat or vest, skirted glaze, and knee joint-length breeches to show off shapely legs. For dressy occasions, men were non averse to wearing satins and velvets embellished with handmade lace and elaborate floral needlework. Military uniforms and servants' livery were based on the fashionable 3-slice suit. These outfits, however, were colored and trimmed to reflect a group amalgamation. Livery colors and edgings derived from the master'due south coat of artillery and enhanced the status of the employer, not the servant.

Women's fashionable gowns emphasized trim torsos atop broad hips. The foundation for the fashionable figure was a pair of boned stays laced over the upper body to create a cone shape and push button the breasts upwardly into high, rounded mounds.

For formal wear, hoops or petticoats with born caning held the skirts away from the body at the sides. The dressier the occasion, the broader the skirt. For less-formal occasions, women oftentimes chose jackets and petticoats with more modest dimensions. Fashion is never static, however. By the belatedly eighteenth century, women began to wear slender white gowns inspired by neoclassical styles, and men adopted dark-colored plain suits with pristine white shirts. An era had ended.

—Linda Baumgarten and Brenda Rosseau

Actor-interpreter Dennis Watson wears a yellow-silk floral-embroidered coat and breeches with a coordinated white-silk satin waistcoat. The embroidery pattern is taken from a purple-silk court suit in Colonial Williamsburg'south collections.

Orientation interpreter Cindy Gunther shows a cream-and-blue floral brocade gown with a gilt bobbin-lace-trimmed stomacher inspired by an antiquarian in the collection of the Costume Establish in Kyoto, Japan. Colonial Williamsburg'southward Wig Store made her wig. The silk ship that tops it, based on a period analogy, is from Colonial Williamsburg's Costume Design Center.

Actor-interpreter Hope Smith poses in a bright xanthous silk satin Brunswick—a fashion of matching petticoat and sack-dorsum jacket—decorated with blue silk and organdy bows and finished with bluish-silk-covered heeled shoes by Sara Juniper. This garment is a replica of an antique at the Costume Constitute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Metropolis.

Actor-interpreter Scott Green wears a lace ruffled shirt and stock under pink satin smallclothes with a purple taffeta coat embellished in silver embroidery and spangles. The embroidery blueprint is taken from a suit in Colonial Williamsburg'southward collections.

Player-interpreter Janine Harris models a pale-yellow changeable silk mantua and extreme side hoops of the 1740s with a brown-silk quilted petticoat, wool-embroidered-on-linen stomacher, hand-built rust-silk-covered heeled shoes with buckles and a lace lappet cap, all from Colonial Williamsburg's Millinery Shop.

Ken Treese, patternmaker at Colonial Williamsburg'south Costume Design Heart, sports regalia constructed for an interpretation of Lord Cornwallis for the upshot "Under the Redcoat." The British major general's uniform is a regimental coat of cherry wool broadcloth faced with blueish and embroidered in aureate, a military cocked chapeau trimmed with aureate lace and black-silk satin bow cockade, a pair of gilded embroidered epaulettes with gilt bullion fringe, buff linen smallclothes, black silk neck stock, and smallsword.

Theatrical interpreter Meg Brown holds a golden-xanthous silk-covered hand-built shoe past Sara Juniper while contemplating what to put on over her lace-trimmed linen shift, small pink hoops, and rose-pink damask stays.

Journeyman silversmith Preston Jones in re-created livery from Virginia Governor Dunmore's household—robin's-egg-bluish wool broadcloth waistcoat and coat trimmed in silver with chocolate-brown wool broadcloth cuffs, neckband, and breeches.

For further reading:

• Read Tailor Fabricated for History in the Autumn 2005 Periodical

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Source: https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Holiday06/fashion.cfm

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