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Calico Chronicle: Texas Women and Their Fashions, 1830 - 1910
Calico Chronicle offers a rare glimpse into the daily routine of Texas women by showing us their everyday fashions. Photos from the costume collection of The Museum, Texas Tech University, and reproductions from mail-order catalogs of the period illustrate this valuable book.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 11, 2012
The nice thing about Calico Chronicle is that it deals specifically with the clothes of pioneer women, rather than just the cutting edge of fashion in the cities where styles were set. It discusses how ordinary women made and wore their clothes on a daily basis. Though its focus is on Texas, most of the information can be applied to the American frontier as a whole.
The first part of the book takes a detailed look at the style and construction of everyday dress in earlier years (i.e. the 1830s through 1850s). The later decades of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th receive a more general overview; the emphasis on the early years, as Mills notes, because of the fewer sources of study available for that period. There are also segments on signature items such as wraps, aprons and bonnets (I now finally know what the garment called a "wrapper" was—and it's not, as you might think, a robe or dressing-gown), and lists of the many different fabrics and color choices available or popular in the different decades.
Mills puts all this into its historical context with accounts of immigration to Texas and how household goods were obtained and transported, and the many different social events to which women wore the clothes described. There's also information on the adoption of sewing machines, printed patterns, and mail-order catalogues, and fascinating descriptions of techniques used to clean, repair and refurbish clothing, and even homemade cosmetics and beauty secrets. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photos of actual historical clothing from the Texas Tech University Museum, and some period photos. It's a great overview of the average woman's historial fashions, with a wealth of interesting detail as well.
The first part of the book takes a detailed look at the style and construction of everyday dress in earlier years (i.e. the 1830s through 1850s). The later decades of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th receive a more general overview; the emphasis on the early years, as Mills notes, because of the fewer sources of study available for that period. There are also segments on signature items such as wraps, aprons and bonnets (I now finally know what the garment called a "wrapper" was—and it's not, as you might think, a robe or dressing-gown), and lists of the many different fabrics and color choices available or popular in the different decades.
Mills puts all this into its historical context with accounts of immigration to Texas and how household goods were obtained and transported, and the many different social events to which women wore the clothes described. There's also information on the adoption of sewing machines, printed patterns, and mail-order catalogues, and fascinating descriptions of techniques used to clean, repair and refurbish clothing, and even homemade cosmetics and beauty secrets. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photos of actual historical clothing from the Texas Tech University Museum, and some period photos. It's a great overview of the average woman's historial fashions, with a wealth of interesting detail as well.
February 17, 2022
It's a great pity that the photo of currently extant clothes are all B&W and not really the best.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews