Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Cosplay: Victorian Hornet

I hit the jackpot of cosplay research today, from 1887:
Fancy Dresses Described; or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls 

--basically a cosplay guide and tutorial for Victorians by Ardern Holt; Debenham & Freebody, London.

Here's a page from it, with a description and color illustration for the "HORNET" dress: 


I've been looking for something to cosplay---this could be it! (Though I bet the fabric would be too expensive, I could adapt it in cardboard or something.)


The entire book is free online (click ^ on the title up top) at the Public Domain Review, "an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works…
which have now fallen into the public domain, that vast commons of out-of-copyright material that everyone is free to enjoy, share, and build upon without restriction." 

Warning: 
Don't click on Public Domain Review's IMAGES or you may never escape looking at the likes of Dr Julius Neubronner’s Miniature Pigeon Camera (from 1908!) or, A Sloth, which I just posted below.

4 comments:

  1. OMG! They have movies too! How to stop looking!?!

    http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-monster-1903/

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  2. There should be a self-help group...

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  3. I have several paper booklets from around 1910 that are similar: telling how to decorate banquet halls & church fetes; one is on costumes; thought they make much more use of "crepe paper", which must have been a relatively new invention....the beginning of the throw-away society...

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  4. Cool! You'll have to show it to me.
    According to the dictionary crepe paper is from the 1890s, so yeah.

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