Corsets

In The UK – Part 2

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

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After a short break, we decided to head east to Soho and check out a few of the fabric stores that we’d previous planned for. Our first stop was MacCulloch & Wallis. There was a variety of fabrics available mostly focused on cottons and silk, (although there was also a wool section) and while much wasn’t anything we couldn’t obtain here in LA, there were some stand-outs that caught our eye:

London Fabric

There were a number of cotton/silk brocades in a variety of colors as seen above. Here’s a sampling of what we bought:

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Adam London

Checking out the fabrics at MacCulloch & Wallis…

London Cloth House

Our next stop was the Cloth House. Although the store was small (everything is small in London, it seems… 🙂 ), it was packed with some interesting fabrics, primarily cottons and cotton/silk mixes (or so it seemed). We didn’t a lot that was useful but the few things we did find were exquisite but unfortunately, almost none of them were available in enough quantity for a dress length- apparently they stock most of their fabrics in 5 meter increments so if your timing is off, you’re out of luck (although they can restock on some fabrics). Here are a couple of cotton prints we walked away with…can you sense the “Liberty London” vibe here? 🙂

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Next, while we weren’t specifically looking for wool, we walked into Borovick Fabrics on a whim and walked out with this beautiful plaid:

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The nice think about this wool is that it’s a medium weight and it will work for Southern California- normally, there’s simply no real opportunities to wear wool, at least not like in the UK. We bought enough yardage for a complete sack suit and vest… 🙂 And then we decided to take a break at the local Cafe Nero before moving on….

(To be continued….)

In The UK – Part 1

/ Adam Lid / Leave a comment

London

After a somewhat uncomfortable 10 1/2-hour flight (that will teach us to ignore the advice on seatguru.com), we made it into Heathrow and were quickly whisked away to our hotel in Kensington. As luck would have it, we arrived at the tail-end of some warm weather with clear skies and zero possibility of rain. 🙂 After some issues with the hotel room (it turns out that there is no air conditioning allowed in historic “listed buildings” above the ground floor, we got everything sorted out and we were ready to hit the town running.

The next morning, we decided to start out somewhat slow by heading over to the V&A Museum for a quick once-over. We were hoping to get into the Frida Kahlo exhibit but you need special tickets to get in and they were all sold out so we contented ourselves touring some of the regular galleries. Unfortunately, most of the better 19th Century costumes are in storage and there’s not a lot on display so it was a bit disappointing though not unexpected (we were hoping that they’d at least rotate a few items).

Although we’ve commented on this before, one of the best stand-outs was this dolman made in 1885 by Pingat:

V&A Museum Dolman Jacket Pingat 1885

Here are a some more views, courtesy of the V&A:

Pingat Dolman 1885

Pingat, Dolman/Jacket; V&A Museum (T.64-1976)

Pingat Dolman 1885

This bodice from 1895 also caught our eye:

V&A Museum Bodice 1895

Unfortunately, getting good pictures are is difficult when the items are behind glass but here are some better views, courtesy of the V&A:

Bodice 1895

Guiquin, L, Bodice, 1895; V&A Museum (T.271&A-1972)

Bodice 1895

Three-Quarter Front View

Bodice 1895

Close-up of upper sleeve.

Although it’s easy to miss because the bodice is behind glass, the silk fabric and trim are very pleasing and especially the silk brocade sleeve treatment. It’s very subtle but adds a depth both in texture and luster. It’s too bad that the skirt is not available for view- it would have made for a beautiful dress- the bodice is only a hint. 🙂

Finally, we end with this fan from Ronot-Tutin that was created c. 1890-1900:

V&A Museum

Stay tuned as we head to Soho for some fabric shopping… 🙂

Corsetry From The V&A…

/ Karin McKechnie-Lid / Leave a comment

While going through some postcards that we bought at the V&A Museum during our recent trip to the UK, I came across this beauty:

Corset c. 1890 - 1895

Corset, c. 1890 – 1895; V&A Museum (T.738-1974)

Here’s another view from the V&A website:

Corset c. 1890 - 1895

This is probably one of the best extant example of corsetry from the 1890s and it helped to create the wasp-waist silhouette that was characteristic of this period. Just for comparison is another corset from 1883:

Corset 1883

Corset, 1883; V&A Museum (T.84&A-1980)

From a general perspective, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between these two corsets. At some point, we’ll take a more detailed look at corsetry so until then, enjoy these pictures. 🙂