1821 Fashions for November – Wearing History® Blog

Hello! I’m peeking my head up for a moment from the crazy amount of work I’m doing on Wearing History Clothing to do a new blog post!

I was very fortunate to have gone to an AMAZING estate sale about 8 years or more ago. It was a textile collector who lived in an old farm house. One of those things you dream about! Well, she had a four poster bed piled high with Victorian clothing, but I was particularly drawn to one book shelf which held volume after volume of bound years of Ladies’ Magazines… including Peterson’s and Godey’s. Unfortunately, at the time I was pretty darn broke, and put myself in financial strain by buying four of them for… get this… $25 a piece. Aah! I know! Such a steal! Why do they always come up when we shouldn’t be searching for treasures? There were probably about ten of them left behind.

I got one Natural Form era one for one of my best friends, and there rest of my three for me- including this Lady’s Magazine from 1821. It’s the earliest in my library which pictures actual garments (I have a sadly disintegrating one from 1800 with no fashion plates, so it’s not as interesting to picture on the blog).

Well, it’s taken me that long to finally share a few of the images.

So, from nearly 200 years ago, here’s what was posted in the October issue of the magazine- featuring fashions for the next month. You can click on the images for larger versions you an read and look at more closely.