#Victorian Menswear

[im-just-a-simple-tailor]

This. THIS. This is the best thing I have ever made. If I show you anything it’s going to be this. A Victorian waistcoat, tailored to my body perfectly without a pattern or a sewing doll, literally the epitome of gender euphoria. God, I love this thing so much.

Ok, ok let me ramble a bit on why I love this so much please.

-gender: Victorian men are gender. Victorian men in their shirtsleeves are gender as fuck. as you can see I am somehow completely flat in this. I am not wearing a binder. That was not planned. This waistcoat just loves me.

-✨craftsmanship✨: I am literally so proud of this can you tell? Again, no one believed I could do this and that is the best motivation to get me to do something. I made the pattern myself, by pinning some scrap fabric to myself wearing an undershirt and drawing on lines and then sewing a rough mock-up, which I then altered for several weeks until it was perfect. Then traced the pattern onto the actual fabric. This also has red satin(like) lining on the inside, which means I basically made it twice and then sewed both pieces together. The fabric covered buttons I also made myself.

-I just literally always wanted to own something like that and I could never find anything close. This is why I love sewing. I love sewing so so much. Because I can dream of it and then I can just make it.

Ok rambling over bye <3

[tweedlebat]

Glove Lore

By Otis H. Kean, S. W. Laird, and Buffalo & co. Published in 1897

Note: I didn't include all the pages from this book as I'm focused on the clothing illustrations and not the texts this time. However I will be posting links to the topics the texts talk about that are more up to date, as well as related topics if you're interested in that rabbithole. If you wish to read the original, here is a link to the archive.org copy :} The native audio function works well for this particular book.

I did not wish to transcribe all the texts is that it comes from a VERY Western-centric Victorian point of view. So instead I'd like to link to various articles and exhibits with a wider scope that can be found in many of these older books. So here's some more accurate info on Gloves and mittens from Wikipedia and National Geographic, as well as specific information about the customs of perfumed gloves and Episcopal gloves. There is a lot of focus on English Medieval Clothing and an entire article on Evening gloves available on Wikipedia. The book also discusses gauntlets and some historical gloves This book also includes an illustration of Queen Elizabeth the first's Gloves done in watercolour, next to it is a photograph of the same gloves from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Additional images pulled from some of the pages. There are a few more, but I prefer to focus on the ones with gloves for references.

[fashionsfromhistory]

Vest

c.1845

England

LACMA (Accession Number: M.87.219)

[frostedmagnolias]

Vest

c. 1880

brocade, velvet, silk

Grand Rapids Public Museum

[rowzien]

I've been meaning to post a picture of this shirt for a while, I made it almost a year ago. I just finished making the trousers as well. The shirt was copied from an original arrow shirt and collar I own. The trousers were drafted from an original 1890s manual online, and the construction methods were based on a pair of 1930s trousers I have to fill in the blanks. I replaced the hat band on my boater as well.

I got the fabric for both the shirt and trousers at Fabricmart. My buttons, cufflinks, other accessories/notions were gotten second hand or I already had them.

[forsythiaproductions]

This is the entire premise of the game. Hugo's "unintentionally" gay thoughts are the sole reason why this game exists.

We had to make it JUST so he can figure it out.

Please figure it out 💀

Of Sense and Soul: A Queer Victorian Romance Game 💌 Follow our Kickstarter (Launching July 12th!) Play our demo | Get our newsletter

[daguerreotyping]

Carte de visite of a pair of well-dressed gentlemen walking away arm in arm, Galashiels, Scotland, c. 1870s

[ghw-archive]

Der Maler Franz Wipplinger, das Miniaturporträt seiner verstorbenen Schwester betrachtend, 1833, by Franz Eybl

[fisarmonical]

The adventure novelist Max Pemberton caricatured in Vanity Fair in 1897.

[sakura-riri]

fashion wears i think levi ackerman would wear 👀

[diemelusine]

Portrait of Count Pyotr Aleksandrovich Valuev (1880) by Ivan Kramskoi. Hermitage Museum.

[volantedesign]

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[fashionsfromhistory]

Men’s Slippers

1880s

Fashion Museum Bath via Twitter

[sleebyfrogs]

The shirt for my historically accurate Toy Soldier cosplay is done!!!!!

[Image: two photos, both taken in a mirror, of a young, transmasc person in their bedroom, wearing a reconstructed, white Victorian dress shirt. It has a shield-shaped bib area and a tab below the placket, with a detachable rounded collar and cuffs. The front placket and collar have a narrow black edge, and everything is fastened together with pearlescent shirt studs and cuff links. In the first image their face is blurred out, with comically simple eyes and a moustache doodled on top. In the second it is obscured by the body of a mandolin, held by its neck in one hand. Their short, dark hair is visible under an antique black-and-red military cap. End ID.]

(*almost historically accurate, and almost done)

After all this time!!!!! I started in September(?) and it’s now May but a lot of that was just putting off starting the twenty eight hand-done gimped and tailored buttonholes this ended up requiring because I can’t do anything by halves

If you’re wondering, I used this pattern, which worked wonderfully for me (special thanks to this tutorial too for demonstrating some of the more difficult parts), but I spent a long time trying to alter it to fit me, and to fit flatteringly, as I have never made a garment this complex before and I do not have the body an average men’s pattern expects. I had to do a lot of things multiple times over, but I’m really glad I did, because it’s definitely the most effort I’ve ever put into anything like this, and the finest sewing work I’ve ever done. I feel very dapper and handsome.

I did machine-stitch most of it because I knew, knowing me, that I could either end up with an ahistorically-sewn shirt or no shirt at all as I would procrastinate sewing all of that by hand just. Forever. I did hand-stitch a lot of it though, mostly the felled seams and fiddly collar bits. And the buttonholes. God so many buttonholes. The black edge is bias tape that I folded in half and ladder-stitched to itself through the shirt/collar fabric. (Also the horizontal seam you can see near the bottom in the lower picture exists solely because I didn’t have the fabric to cut the front out in one, and that part gets tucked into the pants anyway. Piecing is period.)

I’m still working on combining my various incomplete bits of antique cuff link and stud sets in the least-mismatched way, and the shirt itself is definitely not perfect (and there are still some minor adjustments I want to make), but all this to say I’m delighted with my work and excited to move onto the next item, which will probably be either the trousers or waistcoat, and I intend on documenting those too! I learnt so much from this experience and one day I’ll likely make another shirt much like it.

(Also, I’m happy to answer any questions about it!!! I know I could have used footsteps to follow in when I started this project)

They/them

[rowzien]

Oops new period interest. (Click for better picture resolution.)

The jacket is 1950s. The shirt is 1930s with a probably Edwardian collar, and the vest I made.

I suppose I’ll add some info on the vest here since I keep forgetting to make more posts (sorry). Some might know, but for those who don’t the print is Strawberry Thief by William Morris, which he successfully made in 1883. He came up with the idea when he saw thrushes eating his strawberries from his kitchen window.