Napoleanic Batman + chemisette ruffles that defy gravity.

Kenny's work has an annual, themed Christmas party each year, and this year he is on the party planning committee. One of the themes they are tossing around is Masquerade... really hoping they decide to go with this one! 

Our favourite masked icon, by a mile, is Batman. Kenny came home with the idea to translate Batman into my favourite era - late 18th/early 19th century! 

I started here...

And then had to translate into a female Batman (because a girl can be Batman too, right?) 

This may or may not become a reality, depending on whether the masquerade happens this upcoming January. Either way, I want to figure out how to execute that chemisette ruffle - I have seen standing ruffles/collars like this in paintings of the era, but have not been able to catch a glimpse of how they stayed up! 

Instinctively I assume an supportasse or underpropper of some kind would have to be used, just to support the tall ruffles at the back. This look reminds me of the wisks and rebatos of the Elizabethan era (the Very Merry Seamstress explains more about those HERE.) Below is a beautiful example of an Elizabethan style supportasse (if you know the origin of this one, do advise and I will credit! I found this image secondhand via the linked blog, but that is not the original source.) 

Suportasse, developed by ??, found via The Sewing Corner

The easiest way to make this shape stay up would be to not ruffle it - a flat shape can be formed to stand on its own, more or less (if the fabric is stiffened enough). This is illustrated in the painting below (there is a shadow around the edge, just inside the outer frill, that indicates to me that it may also be wired). 

Portret van Nieskia Reiniera Wentholt (1789-1862), c. 1812,
by Willem Bartel van der Kooi

I am almost certain that the below example is wired along the edge (that corner on the left side is rippling exactly the way a wired corner would). This is most feasible in a flat collar - however, the delicacy of mushroom-pleated ruffles might be ruined by a wire along the very edge. 

Marcia Burnes Van Ness, c. 1809-1814, by Gilbert Stuart.

The below example seems to completely defy gravity - there is no evidence of wire or support that I can see, and yet the delicate (and thin) frill floats airily about the wearers chin. This has me baffled. A case of artistic license? 

"Portrait of Mrs. Spencer Perceval"
by Elisabeth-Louise Vigee Lebrun, 1804

Rosalba Peale's ruff (below) also seems incredibly upstanding for the delicacy of the fabric represented - although hers at least has the bulk of a few layers to assist it. 

Rembrandt Peale - Portrait of Rosalba Peale [c.1820]

Clearly this concept requires a bit more investigation. I plan to check out more of these in the next few posts, as I try to figure out the engineering behind these feats of delicate architecture! 

Question: Lapel Decoration

I have not updated in so long! I am a delinquent blogger, I always tell myself I will get better and then I leave long gaps between posts. I think the pressure to post something interesting gets to me, and I end up posting nothing at all because I feel like I don't have anything "good enough" to post!

However, today my curiosity was piqued (again, because I have noticed this detail before) by a painting I found as I was wasting yet another hour on Pinterest. The painting is of Jacques Marquet de Montbreton de Norvins, by Ingres. The reason it stood out to me was because of a small detail, a red patch on the subject's lapel. I have seen this in two other paintings, and that is all. What does it mean?! 

Jacques Marquet de Montbreton de Norvins, by Ingres
Notice the rather sizable red patch on his left lapel.

I found what must be one of Ingres's sketches for this portrait. Even though this is a black-and-white sketch, you can still see the patch on the Marquet's left lapel. 

Jacques Marquet de Montbreton de Norvins, by Ingres

I had noticed, a little while back, two other paintings of gentlemen sporting similar red patches. The first is of Charles Joseph Laurent Cordier, by Ingres (again). 

Charles-Joseph-Laurent Cordier, by Ingres

The second is of Comte (Antoine-Georges-Francois) de Chabaud-Latour and his family, by Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne. 

Portrait of Antoine-Georges-Francois de Chabaud-Latour and his Family

I found an engraving of Chabaud-Latour, in which he does not have the red patch on his lapel, only a medal (with the rosette pinning it to the lapel). 

Antoine-Georges-Francois de Chabaud-Latour

All of the above men are French, and lived during Napoleon's Wars. However, I could only find any information on two:

• Comte (Antoine-Georges-Francois) de Chabaud-Latour: A member of Napoleon's Army (as far as I could discern from my google.translate of French web pages!), and then a member of the French Senate. 
• Jacques Marquet de Montbreton de Norvins: A politician and writer writer, who wrote a history of Napoleon and various other historical books relevant to the Wars. 

Does anybody know about this bit of sartorial symbolism? I am so curious, and I would like to know what this red patch means before I consider tacking it onto any of the tailcoats I produce. 

More paintings... less words

Barthelemy Charles, Comte de Dreux-Nancre, 1797, Martin Drolling

This is an excellent example of the waistcoat that seems to have been most popular right before the turn of the century... The button placement for the double-breasted front is right above the sides of the fall-front of his breeches. That seems a little wide, but I like it.


Portrait of Pierre Seriziat, 1795, Jacques-Louis David


Portrait of Gaspar Mayer, Jacques-Louis David

Personal Styles; Louis Leopold Boilly and Multi-figure Genre Paintings

Thirty-six Faces/Expressions, ?, Louis Leopold Boilly

I have decided that I love the paintings of Louis Leopold Boilly. His paintings are so detailed, without becoming stiff stiff. His subjects are neither over-dramatic nor over-erotic. (That is a terrible explanation for why I like his paintings, my Art History teachers would cringe, but that isn't the point right now.) Anyway, Boilly was a painter who painted in France during the French Revolution. The paintings that I particularly like are his paintings of parties and multi-person events. I think these provide a nice glimpse of what fashion really looked like, considering the fact that no matter what the era, people dress diversely. Some people wear the older styles they are comfortable with, some people stay on the front edge of fashion, and all the rest of us land somewhere in-between.


Meeting of Artists in Isabey's Studio, 1798, Louis Leopold Boilly
The above painting is a really great depiction of men's clothing (not a woman to be seen, actually!). On the left side of the painting, we see a couple of older men, with rather more old-fashioned hairstyles. One of the men looks to be wearing a great-coat (or outer coat), but the other one is obviously wearing a frock-coat. His brown, double-breasted frock-coat has a narrow, curving cutaway, which is very high at center front. It has a very large lapels and a tall collar. His yellow (striped?) waistcoat looks like it buttons down center-front (not double-breasted), with high, symmetrical lapels. Note the low placement of the pockets. His brown breeches have a fall-front and stop just below the knee.

In the middle of the painting, there is a dapper young man who is obviously farther ahead in the fashion game. His frock-coat is a pale green. It has a wider, slightly lower cutaway in the front. The top collar of his coat is narrower than the older gentleman's, and although the lapel is rather obscured, it looks to be slightly smaller and less exaggerated. The young man's breeches are longer - they appear to fasten at the side, which implies that they are knee-breeches and not long pantaloons. Long pantaloons, as far as I have garnered from my research, were worn only for informal occasions until around 1810, after which they saw a rise in popularity. This is probably my favourite look so far. It is very trim and dapper.

Throughout the painting is evidence of varying styles; there is a man in a bright red coat (which I suspect is a short jacket, rather than a long frock-coat), many different colours and shades of coats and waistcoats, coats with different fits and various collars and lapel sizes, etc.


The Arrival of a Stage-coach in the Courtyard of the Messageries, 1803, Louis Leopold Boilly
Above is another example of a wide array of styles. I won't comment in detail on this painting, but I will point out that the figure of a man in the lower right corner of the painting looks to be the exact same man in the Meeting of Artists! The painting looks to be a little romanticized - obviously not all women wore pristine white dresses with sweeping trains (even the little girl in the lower right has an impractically long train). However, it is probably a passing fair representation of everyday life, give or take a few details.

Game of Billiards, 1807, Louis Leopold Boilly
Game of Billiards is my new favourite painting. I love how homey and jovial the atmosphere is, and I really adore the figures in the centre of the painting - it is a little girl hugging her father, and it reminds me of running to hug my dad when he got home from a plane trip! This painting is obviously a set a little later than Meeting of Artists; if you look closely at the collars of the mens' frock coats, you can see how the notch is starting to emerge. According to Norah Waugh in The Cut of Men's Clothes: 1600-1900, the notched collar emerged around 1803 and stuck around until 1850ish. In this painting, however, the notch is still in its baby stages, and I can get a glimpse of how the collars started to merge.

Research on Men's Garments, 1795-1815

I haven't decided exactly what year to place Kenny's costume in... I'm a little worried that my tailoring skills are not up to making the large and magnificent rolled collars that were in vogue after 1800, and the separated collar of earlier years is something I'm pretty sure I could tackle. However, I am a big fan of the cut-away fronts evident in frock coats after 1800 (at least I think they are frock coats - I know there's a debate over 'what is a frock coat' out there); coats before that have a very gentle curve toward the back, but not a distinct cut-away at the waist. I'm afraid that the gentle curve might just make Kenny look like a straight skinny post (or maybe Lowly the Worm). Kenny isn't exactly a huge man. Actually, he is distinctly diminutive. As you can see below, we are almost the same size (except for the fact that I am significantly stouter than him). So while a little visual widening wouldn't hurt (a cutaway would help with that), the narrow inverted 'v' shape formed by earlier coats might just slim him down to a wee sliver.



I began my research by looking at paintings from around the dates that I want to reproduce. I had a particularly hard time finding paintings dating close to 1800 exactly, which seems to be a distinct turning point in men's fashion. I don't really need a costume from 1800 anyway, I just use it as a point of reference. We (Kenny and I) haven't quite decided whether to make something from 'before' (mid-late 1790s) or 'after' (1810s). So, I gathered some paintings and fashion plates from a small range of years to try to figure out exactly what we wanted to go for.


Potrait of Bertrand Barere de Vieuzac, 1793-94, by Jean-Louis Laneuville
This first painting is one of my favourites. I think because I just love his colourful cravat! The colourful cravat seems to just be a French thing, though - I haven't found any Englishmen in anything but white cravats. I also love the red waiscoat, which seems to also be a French thing... I can't really tell anything at all about the collar of the frock coat. At first glance it looks like an older style, with the tails curving away from the waist. However, the silhouette of the collar makes it look like the chunky high separated collar typical of the 1790s. If I peer at the picture really closely, a wide lapel is also visible.


Portrait of a Conventionnaire in the Revolution, 1794, by Jean-Francois Sablet
This Portrait of a Conventionnaire is another painting of a French man with a coloured/patterned cravat and a red waistcoat. The prominent outer coat is actually not a frock coat, it is definitely outerwear. However, the frock coat is visible underneath it. It looks to be an older style, with the front edge coming right up to a standing collar, with no lapels. It is interesting to note that the outer coat has large lapels and a separated collar... but the coat beneath it does not. and the waistcoat beneath that, does! The end result looks a little motley, but I don't think that is entirely bad. I kind of like it, actually.


Portrait of the Sculptor Callamard, 1801, Jean-Baptiste-Jacques Augustin

Final picture for the day, this is another Frenchman. His neck-cloth is ridiculous, but the collar of his coat is pretty clearly defined. It is very large, and very stiff! Something must be stiffening it, but I'm not exactly sure what kind of interfacing would have been used. I have read about buckram or the equivalent being used, but I need to investigate that a little more. I also can't see a bit of waistcoat, unless that little white ridge along the opening of his coat is supposed to be the neck edge of his waiscoat. If so, that is an incredibly white waistcoat.


Next post I will put up some paintings by Louis Leopold Boilly which illustrate a lot of different ages and types of men at one time. They provide a glimpse of the variety of fashions and colours which would have been worn at the turn of the century.