Fashionable white-embroidered accessories c.1840 to 1900-Heather Toomer

Published by HEATHER TOOMER ANTIQUE LACE: ISBN 978-0-9542730-40

In this sequel to our works on 18th- and early 19th-century fashions, the story of whiteworked costume accessories is continued to the end of the 19th century. Throughout this period white fabrics provided a finishing touch to women’s necklines and wrists and, as textile prices fell with industrialisation, were worn by a wider population. A proliferation of fashion magazines also encouraged interest in the rapidly changing fashion world and, although many could afford only decorative machine products, wealthier customers still supported the luxury hand industries.

White collars, cuffs, chemisettes and newly devised undersleeves that filled the openings of wide bodice sleeves were the main focus of embroidery. The fine, raised whitework of earlier decades continued in a slightly altered form and was joined by new embroideries, particularly broderie anglaise and guipure cutworks. The many changes in the accessories themselves, their relationship with the underlying dress, and the varying embroidery styles are followed in numerous contemporary fashion plates, embroidery patterns, photographs of original articles and scaled patterns.

This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with cataloguing a costume or embroidery collection, embroiderers and designers requiring detailed information for accurate reproductions or seeking inspiration for new works, costume and social historians, and anyone with a love of fine craftsmanship.

192 pages with over 350 colour and b & w illustrations including photographs of original whiteworked costume accessories; fashion plates showing how they were worn; close-ups of their embroidery and over 30 accurate patterns to facilitate reproduction of many examples.