The "Keystone" Jacket and Dress Cutter: An 1895 Guide to Women's Tailoring

by Chas Hecklinger, Kristina Seleshanko (Preface)

With opulent fashions the ultimate in style, women of the late Victorian era wore a great deal of silks and satins. Daring combinations of bright colors were in. So were large hats, profusely trimmed. But by the end of the nineteenth century, ladies' tastes in fashion were changing, along with female lifestyles. Larger numbers of women were not only working outside the home, they were also playing tennis and golf, and riding bicycles and horses. All these activities called for a definite change in female fashions. Women came to rely on tailored suits with full skirts and fitted jackets over simple blouses. Riding habits called for a long, draped skirt worn over a pair of trousers.
With the dawn of the twentieth century, professional tailors turned to the comprehensive 1895 "Keystone" guide to create office outfits, riding pants, shirtwaists, and other garments. Filled with more than eighty patterns, the handy resource provided tailors with suggestions for fabric choices as well as instructions for the proper measurement, fitting, cutting, and sewing of such items as a bolero jacket, a shirtwaist with yoke, a single-breasted vest, and riding breeches.
Supplemented with a selection of newly captioned illustrations from The Delineator magazine, this volume will be a valuable reference for costume designers and fashion historians, and a fascinating window on the past for nostalgia enthusiasts.

Genres: Sewing, Fashion, Nonfiction, Victorian, Historical

112 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2006

Reviews

[Iida Kuusisto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thorough instructions with different variations on patterns and sizing. Some guesstimating has to be done when drafting a pattern, since there's sometimes information missing or it's not in the most logical order. The instructions available however are very clear and easy to follow.

[Emily Donnelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing resource for historical costumers. While it can be gotten free in archive.org I really love having it in a physical copy.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is available free online and you can find the link in one of the Bernadette Banner videos. I'v done a quick skim and it looks like I'll have to actually make things to get a better understanding of them but there's a LOT in here. I Just kinda wanna make these and adapt them for modern undergarments so I don't have to make a corset but now I'm concerned if everything will have the proper proportions and support structures? But this isn't the place for that.