A Costume Book I Couldn't Resist...

Now I have to admit I do have a weakness for books on historical costume.

If it's a full size beautifully illustrated book and the content will be helpful in my research, then I will probably buy it- though I will look for the best price...

Some people collect pottery, and no one blinks an eye at how much they might pay for a teacup. I like costume books. :-)

So my most recent purchase came about via a post on Facebook by Rachel Knowles. Her blog, Regency History can be found here, and will be a useful starting resource for anyone wanting to find out more about this time period...

Go to Amazon and use the look inside option
- image from Amazon.co.uk

The book reproduces a selection of the fashion plates that were published in Ackermann's Repository and covers plates from 1809 to 1820, with the description and spelling of the time they were published.

I suppose you could consider Ackermann's the Regency version of today's Vogue, or Harper's Bazaar.

The book was inspired by romance author Candice Hern who has a large collection of Georgian and Regency antiques and a great selection of images and information on the objects on a section of her website, here.

I have a few favourites in the book. There's a lovely ball dress of April 1812- " A round Circassian robe of pink crape, or gossamer net, over a white satin slip, fringed full at the feet." The "peasant" bodice was clearly designed to show off the fuller bossomed woman...

And there's a fantastic "Spanish lappelled coat of fine orange Merino cloth", part of a Promenade Dress from January 1814 that I adore.

Mantles and capes, I would happily wear them today if they were made in my size.

So that's enough, or I'll be talking for days.

Do you have a favourite costume style - from any time period?

I'm Moderating Comments for a While...

Good morning all you polite blog readers and bloggers.

Just wanted to let you all know that I've had to switch to moderating all comments at the moment, due to anonymous spam comments getting through the filters and being published.

My blog seems to be getting more spam than usual, and despite the spam comments clearly being spam they are not being recognised as such.

So until the filters start picking these up, I've decided to temporarily move to moderating comments.

Sadly there seems to also be an issue with genuine comments not appearing too- despite the dashboard saying they are published.

So if you have commented and your comments haven't shown up within a couple of days, please let me know via one of the contact methods shown on the right of my blog page.

Thanks

Carol.

Edited to add: I've had to disable the ability to comment as anonymous. Apologies to any blog readers that used this facility previously to leave genuine comments.