A Visual #Fashion Guide For Women - Necklines, Skirt Types & More!

By KikiCloset.com

Rebloggimg for writing reference

i think one of the reasons i get mildly annoyed about worldbuilding threads that are 200 tweets of why you should care about where blue dye comes from in your world before saying someone is wearing blue is that so few of them go up to the second level of "and that should impact your characters somehow" - i don't care that blue dye comes from pressing berries that only grow in one kingdom a thousand miles away if people are casually wearing blue

a couple of people reblogged this so i was thinking about it again (ok i'm almost always thinking about material culture worldbuilding tbh) & a lot of my problem is that these kinds of worldbuilding threads and posts treat it like an obligation and not an oppurtunity --

"blue dye is rare" is a world fact that could be a plot obstacle (character is a dyer and needs blue cloth, of the right shade, for a festival); a clue (main character notices someone wearing blue and realizes that they're in disguise); a way to inform character (main character sees a blue banner and thinks its owner is showing off); and any number of other things, from small to large.

and if the rarity doesn't serve any of those functions in your story, then the existence of blue dye is not important enough that you, as the author, need to consider it.

i'm a trends and forces guy - i believe any given worldstate is created by billions of coinflips leading up to that moment, some random (the sun rose on the day of the battle and gave one side victory) and some more directed (a law was enacted with a specific intent). expecting, as an author, to have generated a worldstate that coheres and connects in the same way and with the same complexity as ours is going to lead to paralysis more often than it is to interesting worldbuilding, or worldbuilding that supports the story you're trying to tell.

Yeah you don't need to know where everything comes from. What you need, which I think a lot of these demands are actually angling for, is a good intuitive sense of where your setting differs from your present reality.

I don't care where they get their common blue dyes if it's not relevant to the story, but I do care if the narrative's handling of clothes and their color reflects a 'pick out entire readymades from the mall' relationship to wardrobe in a technological and social milieu where that is not logically an option, and there's no sign they're going for one of those surreal modern-pop fantasy settings.

You really do see this quite regularly, coming from writers who just haven't thought about it; they haven't noticed their own cultural framework is historically contingent and actually super abnormal.

'Who domesticated wheat' and 'where does the blue come from' are very handy as sort of shortcut checkpoints to make sure you're making regular contact with material worldbuilding at all--if you know where the blue is from you don't need to decide where the red is from also; you've done the important bit of aligning your thoughts about clothing color with premodern dyeing practices. Other details will tend to accrete on that surface now as they arise.

But yeah if these are approached as literal dictums you just overbuild to no purpose.

#my current textile bugbear is rags#we've basically abandoned them as a society#and now you routinely get people who *have* done some worldbuilding thinking and are doing okay with the period content#but don't really grasp where rags come from or what they're good for#apart from labeling The Poors#and will say things like the torn and bloodstained garments had been thrown out#as they were no longer even fit for rags#how so????#what do you imagine the minimum qualifications of a rag are??#kakl;jdkdfa

#look rags are kinda the plastic bag full of plastic bags of the premodern era#only they're useful in a much wider variety of ways#and much more expensive#i threw out the rags because they were stained is like. i threw out your socks because they were stinky.#normal people don't *do* that#disposable fabric has made us insane

Just to give you some idea of why even rags were very valuable in any pre-industrial setting, here are some facts about fabric production throughout history.

In the Viking era, when drop spindles and vertical looms were the height of technology and every step had to be done by hand, it too about seven hundred hours to make a blanket big enough for one person. First you had to harvest the fiber that you were going to use, then you had to clean it and prepare it, then you had to spin it, then you had to weave it and then you had to finish it.

To support a household of five, and keep them supplied with a bare-minimum of fabric needs (so they weren't naked or cold), took approximately 40 hours of work per week just on textile production. In a reasonably prosperous family, everyone would have two outfits (one for every day work, and one nice one, and when the nice one became too worn or stained to be "nice" it would be your everyday outfit and (if you were lucky) you would make a new one to be nice, and your old everyday outfit would be either passed on to someone or (if it was in too bad a shape for that) would be cut up for various other uses.

As technology progressed, all of the steps in fabric production ended up taking less time; for example, the spinning wheel spins thread much more quickly than the drop spindle does. But it was still a hell of a lot of work.

In the 18th Century, here's the life cycle of bed sheets:

They start out as sheets (flat, both top and bottom) and are needed because they are MUCH easier to wash than your sheets than a blanket. As sheets get used, they develop worn patches to the middle. Those get darned. When even darning is not enough to save them, you cut them in half down the middle, flip the pieces, and sew the edges together so that what had been the edge is now a seam down the middle and the worn parts are on the edges (where the fact that they're worn doesn't matter much). When the new center gets worn out, you cut the fabric apart and turn the usable bits of fabric into pillow cases. When the pillowcases get worn out you turn the usable bits of fabric into handkerchiefs.

And the pieces of fabric that are truly too worn to be used any longer were not thrown out: they were sold. To a ragpicker. Someone whose entire job was buying rags and scraps from households and then selling them on to merchants and tradesmen who could use them. Rags too worn to be used as fabric any longer could be made into paper, for example. Or used as stuffing padded/quilted garments or cushions.

The rags for paper making (because, not to digress too much, paper made from wood pulp is the OG enshittification and only dates back to the 1840s) were so valuable that most European cities that had a strong paper making industry had laws that forbid selling rags outside city limits to make sure they all get fed into the system.

it drives me nuts when an upper class girl carelessly dirties her skirts and this is presented as valorous; for example a young lady muddying and tearing her formal gown because she's so tough and empowered and she chafes at the patriarchy. a formal gown in a lot of eras an investment: depending on the era and setting, this is on par with driving daddy's car into a telephone pole. thousands of (wo)man hours go into embroidery and if a horse or a goat tramples that kind of work into the heather, it can't just be scrubbed clean. ruining a dress, a fine dress, especially a court gown, sacrificed months or even years of skilled labor. of course your sassy princess is getting scolded by her mum, she needs to understand the value of the things she's using.

even worse is when fine fabric is torn up for emergency bandages or a lady is very careless of blood getting on silk or velvet outer skirts, and this is shown as noble and generous and nothing is ever said about who is going to deal with the material mess after our brave wounded hero survives. like getting blood out of velvet? in regency times??? laundering ruffled silk? good luck! AND SHE WOULD HAVE HAD PETTICOATS. LINEN OR COTTON. not to mention a handkerchief! it drives me nuts.

if you're writing a pre-industrial story, your characters' clothes are expensive to make and time consuming to clean. have some respect for the material constraints of your world.

You know what, since I'm thinking about it anyways, let's talk formalwear accessories. Most of these are traditionally menswear but a bit of gender fuckery is good for the soul, and frankly most of these are about making your mass-produced clothing fit and lay properly without having to go to the tailor.

Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They're usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn't ride up. The clips will be visible if you're wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There's also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.

These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.

Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They're properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It's great if you're working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.

Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons

Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You're not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you'd want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that's something you're having issues with.

Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They're not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.

Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn't button, or if you don't like it to be buttoned all the way.

There's tons of other stuff out there like this--etsy is a great place to find this stuff. A lot of these are old solutions to the very modern problem of mass-maufactured clothes not being as one-size-fits-all as advertised, but they're also a fun way to put a bit of personality into businesswear.

Okay I love shit like this and have to add: if you don’t like the garter shirt stays for any reason, next best is the stirrup kind.

But menswear doesn’t get to have all the fun! Here are a few traditionally womenswear accessories:

Hem weights keep your skirt from flying up. You can get sew in and temporary ones.

Lingerie pins keep the straps of your dress and your bra together! They can be hidden or very cute. You can go for vintage ones if you’re obsessed like me or just find either fancy safety pins or small bar pins.

Some also come in groups of three with chains that keep the straps from sliding off your shoulder.

(Often these will get mistaken for baby or doll pins because they are very small, 2-3 cm in length.)

Glove clips hold your gloves to your belt or purse whole you aren’t wearing them, but keep them close at hand (ha).

There are SO many things like this and I love discovering more of them. Humans like to be comfortable and not fussing with their clothes all the time. We’ve forgotten so many ways that people have solved common problems in the past.

I Have Found A Solution!

So, obviously classic wizard robes aren’t wheelchair friendly. (Alright, admittedly this isn’t common knowledge and also this definitely isn’t a problem for most but listen, this is a problem for me and I’m pleased to present a solution for it nonetheless.)

The issue is in the sleeves and the length of the robes. The traditional trumpet style allows them to get snagged, dirty, and caught in the wheels.

This is distinctly not an issue with other mobility aids such as canes and crutches, these wizards are fine to carry on with their trumpet sleeves simply rolled up if needed.

Now, one solution might simply to shorten the sleeves and hem to be out of the way, but that looks rather silly so I won’t do that. Instead I propose the more elegant design of a hanging sleeve to maintain that flowy magical feel while allowing for better range of motion.

Honestly I just love the look of hanging sleeves in general and think more people should appreciate them, wheelchair user or not.

In conclusion…

Following up to this post, here’s a fantastic look at Victorian “fancy dress balls”–they were all the rage at the time, but really picked up in the later half of the century where the focus was more on self-expression than hiding oneself, as was the case at 18th-century masquerades (Phantom hearkens back to this earlier tradition, but the idea of a masquerade hiding one’s true identity also works perfectly for its theatrical setting).

Here are some wackier costumes from fancy dress balls. I’m in love with this one:

And look! A bee!

Here’s a fashion plate with some costume ideas from across the centuries (and of course, we wouldn’t be in the Victorian era if there weren’t a bit of tone-deaf cultural appropriation with the Native American costume.):

It was actually common for women to wear shorter skirts at these balls so they could show off their fabulous boots (as you see above, and as is the case with Christine’s stage version of the Star Princess dress):

Depending on your host, masks of all kinds were welcome, so you were free to be as unsettlingly disturbing as you wanted while you lounged by the punch bowl and made rabbit eyes at the eligible young heiress whose hand in marriage comes with fifty thousand pounds a year and a lifetime of resentment because women’s rights didn’t exist yet:

Suppose you can’t make it to the most fashionable balls London or Paris this season. If it’s 1883 and you are Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and happen to have $6 million of disposable income at your fingertips, why not throw your own fancy dress ball for New York City’s elite (and spend millions on champagne alone)? And why don’t you one-up every single one of your guests by dressing as that most wondrous of new inventions, Edison’s electric light? I defy the Rockefellers to steal your spotlight when the spotlight in question could very easily electrocute them.

Like flowers? Of course you do. Like spring? Oh, my God, do you ever. Like pretending you’re but a mere shepherdess, giggling and flouncing away from the advances of the blacksmith’s apprentice? GOOD LORD, YES. Like  the 18th century? HELL YES, OH MAN, GIMME THAT ROCOCO SPRING FLOWER EXPLOSION:

BUT WAIT! You’re not gonna let that Rococo Spring Flower Explosion HARLOT flounce away with your suitor, are you? HELL NO, YOU ARE NOT. Which is why you are prepared to send her running dressed as a GORGEOUS FREAKING BUTTERFLY:

But where would a butterfly be without a lovely flower upon which to perch? Enter your secret lesbian lover, the Rose:

Or, if you’re uncomfortable with NOT being the center of attention every waking moment, you could just pull the equivalent of one-upping the bride at a wedding by wearing white and come dressed as the DAMN SUN:

But maybe you’re more of the goth persuasion. Might I suggest a tasteful sorceress?

A dainty Batman ensemble to match your wife’s delicate moth angel gown?

Vampire mistress of the night, perhaps?

Actually, bat motifs were an extremely popular costume option, not just in the 19th century, but also at 18th century balls:

But if it’s 1880 and you want to carry on grandma’s bat tradition, this might be a more modern take on a pocket-sized blood-sucking demon:

Or this:

You are so thrilled to attend the costume ball like the goth nightmare you are, you can hardly contain your enthusiasm:

Here is a tastefully acceptable take on Satan. Might I sample your punch, Mrs. Higgenbottom, before I make away with your soul?

“Oh, Ella!”

“Yes, Constance?”

“Oh, I do so love your seagull gown.”

“Oh, why thank you, my dear friend!”

“But I’ve not the slightest idea what I shall wear to the ball!”

“Why, Constance, it is a simple matter of identifying something near and dear to your heart and then adapting it into a suitable costume. I, for example, find solace in the sea, particularly in the birds of the sea, and most particularly when they nose-dive into and defecate upon the boat, shrieking like banshees in heat. Hence, the seagulls adorning my gown. What do you like the very most, Constance?” “MOTHER-EFFING LOBSTERS.”

Or, maybe you’re just a shameless ho and don’t give a brass farthing about showing your ankles, your calves, your thighs, or your hoo-ha at the Embassy Ball, in which case, blaze it:

@phoenixavalon

There are officially zero excuses for boring monochromatic masquerade scenes in Phantom now, thank you.

I feel like we need some clarification

ao dai (vietnamese)

THIS POST IS IMPORTANT.

It’s interesting to note that that the garments that have a cross over style when worn correctly are all worn with the left breast over the right.

That’s because right over left is used for corpses

@thischick25

Direct link: http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

WFHAT HOLY SHIIT

@dog-of-ulthar

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19th Century Fashion

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How a Character’s Choice of Clothing Benefits the Story

When writing, it’s important that everything you include serves a purpose. The character’s name, their favorite color, and their choice of companion give an impression about the character, the world around them, and the past that shaped who they are. The more you amplify these elements, the greater the image you’re painting for the reader.

For example, say the plot calls for the character to buy a car, and they choose a blue one. “Blue” is a necessary detail to include in the narrative, but by giving this specific decision meaning, you make it important. Perhaps blue was their parent’s favorite color, and they strive to please them. Perhaps blue is a calming color, and it reflects their calm personality. This makes the narrative richer.

In the same way, characters need clothing, so why not make it a useful element in the story? Take advantage of this opportunity to tell the reader something. Here are three things your character’s choice of clothing can amplify in the story.

Every detail included in your piece of fiction should serve a purpose, and perhaps even tell a story within a story. Minor details such as a character’s style, their choice of design, or their choice of color can breathe new life into the details of your narrative.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll post different character clothing options as inspiration, and detail how each item could be an asset to your story. Hopefully this will stir up some creative juices and help you make choices to apply to your cast.

Happy writing! And feel free to check out my website: Ember Ink Wordsmithing

What jewelry to wear with what neckline

Check out the Top 100 fashion infographics of 2015: Women’s Edition / Men’s Edition.

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everytime u see a old photo of a snazzy 1920s dude in a suit remember what lurks beneath

okay why are you guys reblogging this and tagging it as reference do you plan on drawing 20s gangsters in their underwear i better see these 

I couldn’t help myself

To be fair, underwear that fully covers the body from neck to knees makes a lot of sense when you’re wearing a dry-clean-only suit as your everyday outfit; it prevents sweat from soiling the garment’s inner layer, and thus lets you go longer between launderings. The development of modern underwear tracks pretty much directly with the shift to washable daywear, which removes much of the need for such extensive protection.

The part that makes least sense is how it’s sleeveless and thus doesn’t protect suits from armpit sweat. Surely the armpit is one of the most important places to put this kind of undergarment? T-shirts were originally designed as an undergarment that does protect clothing from armpit sweat, but they weren’t popularized yet in the 20s.

Most union suits did indeed have full or partial sleeves; the ones pictured in the original post are more fashionable than functional, probably intended to be worn with eveningwear.

Wow this was informative